Overview
The world of cybersecurity is regularly challenged by a myriad of vulnerabilities, and CVE-2025-7722 is a recent addition to this list. This critical vulnerability plagues the Social Streams plugin for WordPress and could potentially allow an attacker to escalate their privileges, leading to a system compromise.
This vulnerability is concerning because of the widespread use of WordPress and its plugins, which power millions of websites worldwide. Due to the improper validation of a user’s identity prior to updating their user meta information, even an attacker with minimal access rights could potentially gain administrative privileges, paving the way for unwanted consequences.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-7722
Severity: Critical (8.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low (Subscriber-level access)
User Interaction: Required
Impact: System compromise or potential data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Social Streams plugin for WordPress | Up to and including 1.0.1
How the Exploit Works
This privilege escalation vulnerability exists due to improper validation of a user’s identity in the update_user_meta() function in the Social Streams plugin for WordPress. As such, an authenticated attacker with Subscriber-level access or above can manipulate this function to change their user type to that of an administrator. This allows them full control over the WordPress installation, leading to potential system compromise or data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
The following is a conceptual pseudocode example of how this vulnerability might be exploited:
POST /wp-admin/user-edit.php?user_id=<attacker_user_id> HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
_wpnonce=<valid_nonce>&action=update&user_id=<attacker_user_id>&role=administratorThe above HTTP request simulates an attacker with Subscriber-level access attempting to change their role to ‘administrator’. This is done by sending a POST request to the ‘user-edit.php’ endpoint with the attacker’s ‘user_id’ and the desired ‘role’ in the request body. Please note that this is a simplified example and an actual attack would require additional steps, such as obtaining a valid nonce.
Recommended Mitigation Steps
To mitigate the potential impact of this vulnerability, it is strongly recommended to apply the vendor patch as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can be used as temporary mitigation. These systems can help detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability, thereby adding an extra layer of security to your WordPress installation.