Overview
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures system has identified a severe vulnerability, tagged as CVE-2025-5590, within the Owl Carousel plugin for WordPress. This plugin, popular for its responsive carousel function, is susceptible to time-based SQL Injection attacks via the ‘id’ parameter, affecting all versions up to and including 1.9. It is crucial to address this vulnerability promptly as it can compromise systems and lead to data leakage, posing a serious risk to a vast number of websites employing WordPress and the Owl Carousel plugin.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-5590
Severity: High (8.8 CVSS Severity Score)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low (Contributor-level access)
User Interaction: Required
Impact: System compromise and potential data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Owl Carousel Plugin for WordPress | Up to and including 1.9
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability arises from insufficient escaping on the user-supplied ‘id’ parameter and lack of adequate preparation on the existing SQL query within the Owl Carousel plugin. Consequently, authenticated attackers possessing Contributor-level access or above can exploit this vulnerability by appending additional SQL queries into existing ones. This manipulation can extract sensitive information from the database, compromising the system and potentially leading to data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual HTTP POST request illustrating how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability:
POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=owl_carousel HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
id=1 UNION SELECT 1,@@version -- -In this example, the attacker is injecting a SQL query (`UNION SELECT 1,@@version`) via the ‘id’ parameter. This query retrieves the version of the database software. The `– -` at the end is a comment marker that ensures any additional SQL code after the injection is ignored, preventing syntax errors.
Mitigation Measures
To mitigate this vulnerability, users are advised to apply the vendor patch as soon as it becomes available. In the interim, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can be deployed as temporary mitigation. Regularly updating and patching software, employing strong access controls, and monitoring system logs can also help guard against such vulnerabilities.