Overview
The cyber threat landscape continually evolves, highlighting the significance of maintaining a robust cybersecurity posture. One such vulnerability, CVE-2025-6366, puts all versions of the Event List plugin for WordPress up to version 2.0.4 at risk. This vulnerability allows authenticated users with Subscriber-level access to escalate their privileges to those of an administrator. This flaw could potentially lead to system compromise or data leakage, thereby posing a significant risk to websites using this plugin.
The severity of this issue necessitates immediate attention. If exploited, it could allow attackers to manipulate the WordPress environment, enabling them to execute arbitrary code or gain unauthorized access to sensitive data. As such, it’s crucial for organizations to understand and mitigate this vulnerability to safeguard their digital assets.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-6366
Severity: Critical (8.8 CVSS)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low (Subscriber-level)
User Interaction: Required
Impact: System Compromise and Potential Data Leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Event List WordPress Plugin |
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability arises from the Event List plugin’s failure to validate user capabilities correctly before updating their profile in the el_update_profile() function. This flaw allows an authenticated attacker, with Subscriber-level access and above, to manipulate their capabilities to those of an administrator. With the elevated privileges, the attacker could perform administrative-level tasks, potentially compromising the system or causing data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
Conceptually, an attacker could exploit the vulnerability via a forged HTTP POST request to the profile update endpoint of the plugin:
POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=el_update_profile HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
user_id=attacker_id&capabilities=a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}In this example, the attacker with user_id “attacker_id” is sending a request to update their profile with administrator capabilities. If successful, this would escalate their privileges to those of an administrator, granting them access to perform critical actions within the WordPress environment.
Mitigation
To mitigate this vulnerability, users are urged to apply the patch provided by the vendor as soon as possible. If the patch cannot be applied immediately, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as temporary mitigation. These systems can be configured to identify and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability.
