# CVE-2026-18467: Privilege escalation in Paytium: Mollie payment forms & donations

> Unauthenticated attackers can escalate privileges to administrator by manipulating payment form metadata, leading to full site takeover.

- **Severity:** Critical 9.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 24 Sep 2026
- **Updated:** 24 Sep 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-pjhr-j4c6-9f6g

## What is CVE-2026-18467?

CVE-2026-18467 is a critical vulnerability in paytiumsupport Paytium: Mollie payment forms & donations, published on 24 Sep 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The Paytium: Mollie payment forms & donations plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 5.0.3. The 5.0.3 patch introduced a wp_hash()/hash_equals() signature gate on the pt-paytium-user-data field, but left a second filter — pt_cf_checkout_meta(), registered on the pt_meta_values hook after the signed builder — that copies every $_POST['pt_form_field'][*] key verbatim into the payment meta array without any signature verification; this allows the pt-user-role value it copies to overwrite the signed path's output, after which paytium_user_data_processing() reads the persisted _pt-user-role post meta and passes it directly as the role argument to wp_insert_user(). This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to register a new WordPress account with the administrator role and fully take over the site. Exploitation requires submitting a payment through a publicly-exposed [paytium] shortcode form and completing the resulting payment flow, after which the attacker can seize the new administrator account via the standard lost-password flow on their supplied email address.

Weakness: CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-18467?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-18467?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-18467 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-18467 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-18467 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-18467 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-18467 is a critical vulnerability in paytiumsupport Paytium: Mollie payment forms & donations, published on 24 Sep 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-18467 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: paytiumsupport Paytium: Mollie payment forms & donations. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-18467/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-18467/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-18467
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-18467
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-18467

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-18467/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.