CVE-2025-0177

Critical

Published: 08 March 2025

Published

08 March 2025

Modified

13 March 2025

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0031 54.1th percentile

Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

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 45.9% 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).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) and 1 other technique. What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

AC-2 Account Management good match

prevent

AC-2 requires defined procedures for account creation and privilege assignment, directly preventing self-escalation to administrator roles during unauthenticated registration.

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match

prevent

SI-10 mandates validation of information inputs like user-specified roles during registration, blocking arbitrary privilege escalation.

AC-6 Least Privilege good match

prevent

AC-6 enforces the principle of least privilege, ensuring accounts created via registration receive only necessary privileges and not administrator access.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.

attack.mitre.org →

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.

attack.mitre.org →

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.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

NVD Description

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…

possible for unauthenticated attackers to gain elevated privileges by creating an account with the administrator role.

Deeper analysisAI

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.