CVE-2023-26540
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedImproper Privilege Management vulnerability in Favethemes Houzez allows Privilege Escalation.This issue affects Houzez: from n/a through 2.7.1.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceImproper Privilege Management vulnerability in the Favethemes Houzez WordPress theme allows unprivileged users to escalate their privileges, likely through missing capability checks or improper validation on administrative functions. The critical CVSS score of 9.8 indicates this is easily exploitable and can lead to full admin compromise.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm Houzez theme is installedNavigate to Appearance > Themes in WordPress admin panel and verify the active theme is Houzez, or inspect wp-content/themes/ directory for houzez folderAffected if Houzez theme folder exists and theme is active
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Identify installed Houzez versionCheck theme style.css header for Version: field, or view theme-details.php file in the houzez theme folderAffected if Version cannot be confirmed as patched or is older than the latest available version
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Inspect admin-ajax.php handlers for capability checksSearch theme files (especially functions.php, ajax-handlers.php, or similar) for add_action("wp_ajax_...") calls and verify if they include current_user_can() or capability checks before executing privileged operationsAffected if Ajax handlers perform administrative actions without verifying user capabilities
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Review user role permission boundariesCreate a test subscriber-level user account and attempt to access wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with actions that should require administrator privilegesAffected if Non-administrator users can execute functions that should be restricted to admins
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Check for unauthenticated privilege escalation endpointsExamine theme files for functions that modify user roles, options, or wp-config.php settings and verify they reject low-privilege requestsAffected if Theme permits role modification or settings changes without proper authorization
Environment is affected if Houzez theme is active and version is unpatched or unknown, AND the theme allows non-administrator users to access privileged administrative functions without capability verification.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpdate Houzez theme to the latest patched version. If no patch is available, conduct a security code review to identify and fix missing capability checks and improper authorization validation in adminajax.php handlers and other privileged endpoints.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,544.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-26540 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-26540 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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