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CVE-2026-85659

high

The PilotPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Account Takeover in all versions up to, and including, 2.0.43.

The PilotPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Account Takeover in all versions up to, and including, 2.0.43. The vulnerability exists because the `update_cc_details()` AJAX handler forwards an attacker-supplied `username` parameter to ONTRAPORT via `api_call('update_cc_details', ...)` before performing the local `username_exists()` collision check, and aborts without rolling back the remote rename when a collision is detected — leaving the remote ONTRAPORT contact renamed to an existing WordPress Administrator's login. On a subsequent login attempt, `user_login()` (hooked to `wp_authenticate`) authenticates against ONTRAPORT using the renamed login and the attacker's own password, resolves the local WordPress user row via `get_user_by('login', $username)` — which now selects the real Administrator's row — and calls `wp_set_password()` against that Administrator's user ID; because the `user_level != 10` guard only suppresses PilotPress's own cookie issuance rather than returning a `WP_Error` to core, WordPress proceeds to validate the newly-synchronized password and issues a full Administrator authentication cookie to the attacker. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access and above — specifically any PilotPress member holding a valid ONTRAPORT contact and the Customer Center nonce — to fully take over an Administrator account.

CVSS
8.8
8.8 (CVSS v3.1)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Severity source: NVD CVSS v3.1 (security@wordfence.com)
Timeline (UTC)
Published: 2026-10-16 06:17
Modified: 2026-10-16 15:17
NVD status: Deferred
Last synced 1 day ago
Verified against the source API 2026-10-27 07:03 UTC
Exploitation
Not listed in CISA KEV (as of last catalog sync)
Absence from KEV does not mean a CVE is not exploited. Exploitation status: unknown (no authoritative evidence in our sources).

Affected products

Not reported by the source (unknown — not "none").

Weakness classification (CWE)

Source: NVD / CISA. “NVD-CWE-Other” and “NVD-CWE-noinfo” mean NVD could not assign a specific weakness.

Mitigation & advisories

No vendor advisory or patch reference tagged by NVD. Check the references below.

References

Data sources

NVD CVE API 2.0 — fetched 2026-10-27 07:03 UTC · record ↗

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