What happened
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.
Affected versions
Consulting - Business, Finance WordPress Theme: 0 through 6.7.16 (semver) Fixed: See vendor advisory.
Why it matters
This source correlation may provide earlier visibility while structured CVE metadata is still being updated.
Detection & mitigation
- Review the original advisory and validate affected versions.
- Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations when available.