---
id: CVE-2026-14805
title: >-
  The Consulting theme for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in
  versions up to, and including, 6.7.16
summary: >-
  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-n…
severity: high
cvss: 8.8
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-269
vendor: StylemixThemes
product: 'Consulting - Business, Finance WordPress Theme'
affected:
  - consulting_-_business_finance_wordpress_theme <= 6.7.16
published: '2026-09-15'
updated: '2026-09-17'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-17T15:16:41.150'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-14805'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://themeforest.net/item/consulting-business-finance-wordpress-theme/14740561#item-description__changelog
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/bc8dffc2-ae5b-4482-9eba-adc439a52c26?source=cve
    label: security@wordfence.com
tags:
  - nvd
  - cve.org
ssvc:
  exploitation: none
  automatable: 'no'
  technicalImpact: total
  timestamp: '2026-09-17T14:25:45.750508Z'
epss: 0.00309
epssPercentile: 0.21212
ingestedAt: '2026-09-15T13:37:33.313Z'
---

## Overview

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.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.