CVE-2026-14805Consulting - Business, Finance WordPress Theme <= 6.7.16 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via AJAX

The Consulting theme for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in versions up to, and including, 6.7.16. This is due to a combination of two flaws: (1) the masterstudy_ms_stm_set_discard_transient AJAX endpoint in admin/admin-notices/classes/STMHandler.php accepts an arbitrary transient key without capability checks or nonce validation, and (2) the developer access login mechanism in admin/classes/stm-theme-support.php authenticates users based on a transient value without proper cryptographic validation when in legacy string mode. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to set the stm_developer_access_token transient to a known value (1), then authenticate as any existing user including administrators by visiting a specially crafted URL, thereby achieving full privilege escalation to administrator.

CVSS

8.8 HIGH (v3.1, CNA)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Weakness (CWE)

CWE-269

Known exploited

Not in CISA's KEV catalog

EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)

Not loaded for this CVE

Assigned by

Wordfence

NVD analysis

Deferred

Record last updated

Sep 17, 2026

First seen by InfoSec Signals

Oct 9, 2026

The CVE record on cve.org · NVD's entry

The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.