CVE-2025-1309
Published: 07 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-1309 is a high-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Wordpress (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 8.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 39.2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-1309 is a high-severity vulnerability (CVSS 8.8) in the UiPress lite plugin for WordPress, affecting all versions up to and including 3.5.04. It stems from a missing capability check in the uip_save_form_as_option() function (CWE-862: Missing Authorization), which allows unauthorized modification of WordPress site options and can lead to privilege escalation.
Authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access or higher can exploit this vulnerability remotely with low complexity and no user interaction required. By calling the vulnerable function, they can update arbitrary site options, such as enabling user registration and changing the default role for new registrations to administrator, thereby creating administrative accounts to gain full control over the site.
Mitigation details are available in plugin advisories, including Wordfence's threat intelligence report and the WordPress plugin trac. The issue was addressed in a subsequent changeset (3249865), with the fix visible in the plugin's ajax-functions.php source code; security practitioners should update to UiPress lite versions beyond 3.5.04 and review access for low-privilege users.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-7387
Vulnerability details
The UiPress lite | Effortless custom dashboards, admin themes and pages plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data that can lead to privilege escalation due to a missing capability check on the uip_save_form_as_option() function in all versions…
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up to, and including, 3.5.04. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to update arbitrary options on the WordPress site. This can be leveraged to update the default role for registration to administrator and enable user registration for attackers to gain administrative user access to a vulnerable site.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
The CVE describes remote exploitation of a public-facing WordPress plugin via missing authorization, enabling authenticated low-privilege users to modify site options for privilege escalation and admin account creation.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces approved authorizations for access to system resources, directly addressing the missing capability check that allows unauthorized modification of WordPress site options.
Requires timely identification, reporting, and correction of flaws like the missing authorization in the UiPress plugin, preventing exploitation through patching to versions beyond 3.5.04.
Employs the principle of least privilege to restrict Subscriber-level users from performing administrative actions, mitigating the privilege escalation potential even if enforcement fails.