Overview
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, cybersecurity breaches are a growing concern. With the latest vulnerability found in the Bei Fen – WordPress Backup Plugin, websites worldwide could potentially be at risk. This vulnerability, officially dubbed CVE-2025-9993, presents a serious risk to any WordPress site running the affected versions of this popular backup plugin. Website owners and administrators should take immediate action to secure their sites and protect sensitive data from potential attacks.
This vulnerability is of considerable importance due to the wide-spread use of WordPress as a content management platform and the prevalence of the Bei Fen plugin. Furthermore, the severity of this vulnerability is high, as it allows for the potential compromise of entire systems or potential data leakage.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-9993
Severity: High (8.1 CVSS Score)
Attack Vector: Local File Inclusion
Privileges Required: Subscriber-level access
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Bei Fen – WordPress Backup Plugin | All versions up to and including 1.4.2
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability lies in the ‘task’ parameter of the Bei Fen – WordPress Backup Plugin. An attacker with Subscriber-level access can manipulate this parameter to include and execute arbitrary .php files on the server. This gives the attacker the ability to execute any PHP code within those files. Such a vulnerability can be exploited to bypass access controls, obtain sensitive data, or achieve code execution in cases where .php file types can be uploaded and included.
Conceptual Example Code
Here is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This could be a sample HTTP request:
POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=bei_fen_task_execute HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
task=../../../../malicious.phpIn this example, the attacker sends a POST request to the vulnerable endpoint. The ‘task’ parameter is exploited to include a malicious PHP file from an arbitrary location, leading to its execution on the server.
Mitigation
The best way to mitigate this vulnerability is by applying the vendor-supplied patch. If the patch cannot be applied immediately, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation. Website administrators are strongly urged to take immediate action to protect their sites from this critical vulnerability.
