Unauthenticated administrator creation via unchecked role input
Published May 17, 2024 · Updated Apr 28, 2026
Privilege escalation in Favethemes Houzez 2.7.1 and earlier allows remote attackers to create WordPress administrator accounts. The houzez_change_user_role and houzez_register_user_with_membership AJAX actions accept a caller-supplied role without server-side validation. No authentication or user interaction is required, and the resulting administrator access permits complete control of the affected WordPress site.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in Favethemes Houzez 2.7.1 and earlier allows remote attackers to create WordPress administrator accounts. The houzez_change_user_role and houzez_register_user_with_membership AJAX actions accept a caller-supplied role without server-side validation. No authentication or user interaction is required, and the resulting administrator access permits complete control of the affected WordPress site.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-26540
- Published
- May 17, 2024
- Updated
- Apr 28, 2026
- Vendor
- Favethemes
- Product
- Houzez
- Classifications
- CWE-269, CAPEC-233, T1190
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 17, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 28, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=0 <2.7.2
- Affected versionversion=n/a <=2.7.1 changes=[{"at":"2.7.2","status":"unaffected"}]
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Reported exploitation
- Reported active exploitation of Houzez privilege escalationreported exploitation
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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