CVE-2025-4315: Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in CubeWP – All-in-One Dynamic Content Framework Plugin for WordPress

Overview

In the world of cybersecurity, staying abreast of the latest vulnerabilities, and understanding how they can be exploited, is critical. One such recent vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-4315, affects the CubeWP – All-in-One Dynamic Content Framework plugin for WordPress. This plugin vulnerability is of particular concern because it allows an authenticated attacker with minimal access to potentially gain administrative privileges and compromise the system or leak data. This blog post aims to provide an in-depth understanding of this vulnerability, its potential impact, and the steps you can take to mitigate it.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-4315
Severity: High (8.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low (Subscriber-level access)
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

CubeWP – All-in-One Dynamic Content Framework plugin for WordPress | Versions up to, and including, 1.1.23

How the Exploit Works

The CVE-2025-4315 vulnerability stems from the CubeWP plugin’s failure to properly limit the update_user_meta() function’s capabilities. This function allows a user to update arbitrary user meta, effectively giving them the ability to change their privileges. An attacker with Subscriber-level access could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted request to update their user meta and elevate their account privileges to that of an administrator. This provides them with the potential to compromise the system or leak data.

Conceptual Example Code

Here’s an example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This is a conceptual HTTP request that an attacker might send to update their user meta:

POST /wp-json/wp/v2/users/123 HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer <authentication token>
{
"meta": { "wp_capabilities": { "administrator": true } }
}

In this example, the attacker is sending a POST request to the WordPress REST API to update their user meta. They are specifically changing the wp_capabilities field to grant themselves administrator privileges.

Mitigation Guidance

The best way to protect your system from this vulnerability is to apply the patch provided by the vendor. If the patch cannot be immediately applied, a web application firewall (WAF) or intrusion detection system (IDS) can be used as a temporary mitigation measure. These systems can be configured to detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability. However, these are only temporary solutions, and applying the vendor’s patch should be a priority to ensure long-term protection.
In addition to these immediate steps, it’s also recommended to follow best practices for secure coding and regularly perform security audits to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities in your software.
Stay safe, stay secure!