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CVE-2026-85659: PilotPress privilege escalation vulnerability

high 8.8 published 2026-10-16

The record does not say which version fixes it

PilotPress 2.0.43 and older is affected by this privilege escalation issue. The latest release (2.0.46) is outside the affected range.

Affected versions
2.0.43 and older
Fixed in
unknown
Latest version
2.0.46
Severity
High · CVSS 8.8
Active installs
900+
Type
Privilege escalation

What an attacker needs

CVSS vector (score by Wordfence): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

What to do now

  1. Update PilotPress to the latest version (2.0.46). The record does not name a fixed version, so also read the advisory below.
  2. If you cannot update right away, deactivate it until you can.
  3. Not sure which version you run? Check your version against every known PilotPress issue. With WP-CLI: wp plugin get pilotpress --field=version.
  4. If you ran an affected version and something looks off (new admin users, spam pages, redirects), run the free scan below.

The advisory

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.

Description from the CVE record, published by Wordfence (the CVE Numbering Authority), via the NVD entry for CVE-2026-85659.

References

Related

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