{"id":51180,"date":"2025-06-11T18:27:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T18:27:16","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-07-10T23:24:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T05:24:27","slug":"cve-2025-5701-critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-wordpress-hypercomments-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-5701-critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-wordpress-hypercomments-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-5701: Critical Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in WordPress HyperComments Plugin<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The digital landscape is fraught with vulnerabilities, and the CVE-2025-5701 is a glaring example of how a seemingly harmless WordPress plugin can turn into a potential system compromise or data leakage tool. The HyperComments plugin, a popular tool for WordPress sites, has been discovered to possess a critical vulnerability that allows unauthorized modification of data. This cyber threat affects all versions up to, and including, 1.2.2 of the HyperComments plugin. The vulnerability is of immense concern as it can potentially grant an unauthenticated attacker administrative user access to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-4631-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-profitori-wordpress-plugin\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"57421\">vulnerable WordPress<\/a> site.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-5701<br \/>\nSeverity: Critical (9.8 CVSS Severity Score)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Network<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: None<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-48881-unauthorized-access-and-modification-vulnerability-in-valtimo-business-process-automation\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"57411\">Unauthorized modification<\/a> of data leading to privilege escalation and potential system compromise or data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-4158628071\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 720px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 22px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center; letter-spacing: -0.02em;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 10px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 42px; height: 42px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    Share secrets securely\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 14px; color: #d1d5db;\">\r\n    Ameeba is private infrastructure for communication and sensitive work built on encrypted identity instead of exposed corporate identity systems.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 18px; color: #a1a1aa;\">\r\n    Passwords, credentials, confidential files, screenshots, internal discussions, sensitive AI context, and private coordination should not become exposed across ordinary communication platforms.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #e4e4e7;\">\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Private Spaces for organizations and teams<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, files, and notes<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Sensitive AI work and protected collaboration<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Built for information that cannot leak<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #ffffff;\">\r\n    Our mission is to secure human work alongside AI.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Download Ameeba\r\n    <\/a>\r\n\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Learn More\r\n    <\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>HyperComments <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-6755-wordpress-plugin-vulnerability-leads-to-arbitrary-file-deletion\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"65635\">Plugin for WordPress<\/a> |<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-4103-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-wp-geometa-plugin-for-wordpress\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"58208\">vulnerability lies in the hc_request_handler function of the HyperComments plugin<\/a>. This function lacks a necessary capability check, making it possible for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-3755-unauthenticated-remote-attack-on-mitsubishi-electric-melsec-iq-f-series-cpu-modules\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"58360\">unauthenticated attackers<\/a> to update arbitrary options on a WordPress site. By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker can manipulate the default role for registration to the administrator and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-34509-hardcoded-user-account-in-sitecore-xm-and-xp-enabling-unauthenticated-remote-access\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"62799\">enable user<\/a> registration. This allows the attacker to register themselves as an administrator, thus gaining full administrative <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-49136-critical-vulnerability-in-listmonk-allows-unauthorized-access-to-sensitive-environment-variables\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60366\">access to the vulnerable<\/a> site.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-1005370907\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This is a malicious <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-5739-critical-buffer-overflow-vulnerability-in-totolink-x15-http-post-request-handler\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"59812\">HTTP request<\/a> that an attacker might send:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">POST \/wp-json\/hc\/v1\/request_handler HTTP\/1.1\nHost: vulnerablewebsite.com\nContent-Type: application\/json\n{\n&quot;option_name&quot;: &quot;default_role&quot;,\n&quot;option_value&quot;: &quot;administrator&quot;\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>In this example, the attacker is sending a POST request to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-3260-security-vulnerability-in-grafana-api-endpoints-leading-to-permission-bypass\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"57661\">vulnerable endpoint<\/a> in the HyperComments plugin (`\/wp-json\/hc\/v1\/request_handler`). The payload of the request aims to change the `default_role` option to `administrator`.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mitigation Guidance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-3054-arbitrary-file-upload-vulnerability-in-wp-user-frontend-pro-plugin-for-wordpress\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"59238\">Users of the HyperComments plugin<\/a> are strongly advised to apply the vendor patch as soon as possible. As a temporary mitigation measure, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-5485-a-critical-vulnerability-pertaining-to-user-name-enumeration-in-web-management-interfaces\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"61526\">users can deploy a Web<\/a> Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to monitor and block malicious requests. However, these measures are not full-proof and should be used in conjunction with the vendor patch to ensure comprehensive protection against this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-3394-critical-resource-vulnerability-in-abb-automation-builder\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"57494\">critical vulnerability<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview The digital landscape is fraught with vulnerabilities, and the CVE-2025-5701 is a glaring example of how a seemingly harmless WordPress plugin can turn into a potential system compromise or data leakage tool. The HyperComments plugin, a popular tool for WordPress sites, has been discovered to possess a critical vulnerability that allows unauthorized modification of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[],"product":[],"attack_vector":[76],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-51180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","attack_vector-privilege-escalation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51180"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59081,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51180\/revisions\/59081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51180"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=51180"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=51180"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=51180"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=51180"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=51180"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=51180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}