CVE-2025-3848: Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in WP SmartPay Plugin for WordPress

Overview

The cybersecurity community has identified a critical vulnerability associated with the WP SmartPay plugin used with WordPress. Designated as CVE-2025-3848, this vulnerability affects versions 1.1.0 to 2.7.13 of the plugin and could potentially impact millions of users worldwide. The vulnerability lies in the plugin’s failure to validate user identities properly before updating their email addresses. This flaw allows for a significant security breach, enabling authenticated attackers to potentially take over administrative accounts, leading to system compromise or data leakage.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-3848
Severity: High (8.8 CVSS Score)
Attack Vector: Remote
Privileges Required: Low (Subscriber-level access)
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Account Takeover, Potential System Compromise, and Data Leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

WP SmartPay Plugin for WordPress | 1.1.0 to 2.7.13

How the Exploit Works

The vulnerability, CVE-2025-3848, exists due to the WP SmartPay plugin’s inadequate validation of user identities before updating their email addresses. An authenticated attacker with Subscriber-level access can exploit this flaw, manipulating the update() function to change the email address of any user, including administrators. This action allows the attacker to initiate a password reset for the targeted account, receive the reset link via the newly updated email, and thus gain unauthorized access to the account.

Conceptual Example Code

Here is a conceptual example of how this vulnerability might be exploited. We’ll use a HTTP request to illustrate this:

POST /wp-smartpay/update-user HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
Authentication: Bearer [attacker's token]
{
"user_id": "admin",
"email": "attacker@example.com"
}

In this example, the attacker sends a POST request to the `update-user` endpoint of the WP SmartPay plugin, modifying the `user_id` value to the target user (e.g., “admin”) and the `email` value to the attacker’s email address. This action triggers a password reset, granting the attacker unauthorized access to the account.

Mitigation Guidance

The vendor has released a patch to address this vulnerability. Users of the WP SmartPay plugin for WordPress are advised to update to the latest version immediately. If unable to apply the patch promptly, users should implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) as a temporary mitigation measure. Regular monitoring of account activities and unusual login attempts is also advised to detect potential exploits.