CVE-2025-22586
Published: 13 January 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-22586 is a high-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 30.5th 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-15 (Information Output Filtering).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-22586 is an Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation vulnerability, classified as Reflected Cross-site Scripting (XSS) under CWE-79, in the WordPress plugin WPEX Replace DB Urls (wpex-replace) by dstoever. The issue affects all versions from n/a through 0.4.0 inclusive. Published on 2025-01-13, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.1 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L).
Attackers can exploit this vulnerability remotely over the network with low attack complexity, requiring no privileges or authentication but relying on user interaction, such as clicking a malicious link. Exploitation changes the security scope, enabling limited impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, such as injecting scripts into reflected user input to steal session cookies or perform actions in the authenticated user's browser context on affected WordPress sites.
The Patchstack advisory provides further details on this vulnerability, available at https://patchstack.com/database/Wordpress/Plugin/wpex-replace/vulnerability/wordpress-wpex-replace-db-urls-plugin-0-4-0-reflected-cross-site-scripting-xss-vulnerability?_s_id=cve.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-2861
Vulnerability details
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in dstoever WPEX Replace DB Urls wpex-replace allows Reflected XSS.This issue affects WPEX Replace DB Urls: from n/a through <= 0.4.0.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Reflected XSS in public-facing WordPress plugin directly enables T1190 (exploit public-facing web app) and T1185 (steal session cookies for browser session hijacking).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
SI-15 requires filtering of information outputs to neutralize script tags and other malicious content in reflected user inputs, directly preventing XSS exploitation in web page generation.
SI-10 enforces validation and sanitization of untrusted inputs to block malicious scripts from being processed and reflected, addressing the improper neutralization core to this CVE.
SI-2 mandates identification, reporting, and timely patching of flaws like this reflected XSS vulnerability in the WPEX Replace DB Urls plugin.