CVE-2026-85659
Received
Received - Intake
Privilege Escalation via Account Takeover in PilotPress WordPress Plugin
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-85659, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-16
Last updated on: 2026-10-16
Assigner: Wordfence
Description
Description
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 Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| ontraport | PilotPress | 0 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-269 | The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. |
