CVE-2025-0177
Published: 08 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-0177 is a critical-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Javothemes Javo Core. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 45.4% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-2 (Account Management) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-0177 is a privilege escalation vulnerability affecting the Javo Core plugin for WordPress in all versions up to and including 3.0.0.080. The flaw stems from the plugin permitting users registering new accounts to arbitrarily set their own user role, bypassing standard WordPress access controls. This issue has been assigned CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management) and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating critical severity due to its network accessibility and high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability remotely with low complexity and no user interaction required. By simply registering a new account and specifying the administrator role during the process, attackers gain elevated privileges, enabling full control over the affected WordPress site, including data exfiltration, modification, or deletion.
Mitigation details are outlined in vendor advisories, including the update history on the ThemeForest page for the Javo Directory WordPress theme at https://themeforest.net/item/javo-directory-wordpress-theme/8390513#item-description__update-history and the Wordfence threat intelligence report at https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/7d636768-37b4-4343-9028-30e7b1f997f2?source=cve. Security practitioners should update to a patched version beyond 3.0.0.080 and review user registrations for unauthorized admin accounts.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-7357
Vulnerability details
The Javo Core plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 3.0.0.080. This is due to the plugin allowing users who are registering new accounts to set their own role. This makes it…
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possible for unauthenticated attackers to gain elevated privileges by creating an account with the administrator role.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Remote unauthenticated privilege escalation in public-facing WordPress plugin directly enables T1190 (Exploit Public-Facing Application) for initial access and T1068 (Exploitation for Privilege Escalation) to gain admin rights.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-2 requires defined procedures for account creation and privilege assignment, directly preventing self-escalation to administrator roles during unauthenticated registration.
SI-10 mandates validation of information inputs like user-specified roles during registration, blocking arbitrary privilege escalation.
AC-6 enforces the principle of least privilege, ensuring accounts created via registration receive only necessary privileges and not administrator access.