CVE-2025-15157
Published: 13 February 2026
Summary
CVE-2025-15157 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 23.2th 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-2025-15157 is a vulnerability in the Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress plugin that allows unauthorized modification of data, leading to privilege escalation. It stems from a missing capability check on the 'srm_restore_options_defaults' function in all versions up to and including 3.1.19. The issue is rated with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) and is associated with CWE-862 (Missing Authorization).
Authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access or higher can exploit this vulnerability remotely with low complexity and no user interaction required. By calling the affected function, they can update arbitrary WordPress options, such as changing the default role for new user registrations to administrator and enabling user registration. This enables attackers to create administrative accounts and gain full control over the vulnerable site.
Advisories from Wordfence and the WordPress plugin trac repository provide additional technical details, including source code references to the vulnerable AJAX callback in the plugin's init/actions/ajax/starfish-ajax-callbacks.action.php file at line 46. No specific patch details are outlined in the available information, but updating to a version beyond 3.1.19 is implied as necessary for remediation.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-207529
Vulnerability details
The Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data that can lead to privilege escalation due to a missing capability check on the 'srm_restore_options_defaults' function in all versions up to, and…
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including, 3.1.19. 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?
Missing authorization check enables remote authenticated privilege escalation to admin via option modification on public-facing WordPress plugin.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces approved authorizations to prevent unauthorized modification of WordPress options via missing capability checks in the plugin function.
Limits privileges to the minimum necessary, reducing the impact of low-privilege accounts like Subscriber exploiting the vulnerability for escalation.
Requires timely remediation of the specific plugin flaw through patching to versions beyond 3.1.19, eliminating the missing authorization vulnerability.