CVE-2025-23797

Critical

Published: 16 January 2025

Published

16 January 2025

Modified

23 April 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score v3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0035 57.6th percentile

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

Summary

CVE-2025-23797 is a critical-severity CSRF (CWE-352) vulnerability. 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 42.4% 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 SC-23 (Session Authenticity) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).

Deeper analysis

CVE-2025-23797 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability, mapped to CWE-352, in the WP Options Editor plugin (wp-options-editor) developed by Mike Selander for WordPress. The flaw allows privilege escalation and affects all versions from unknown initial release through 1.1 inclusive. Published on 2025-01-16, it 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).

The vulnerability can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers accessible over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction required. Successful exploitation enables high-impact compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, specifically through privilege escalation on affected WordPress sites running the vulnerable plugin.

Mitigation details are provided in the Patchstack advisory at https://patchstack.com/database/Wordpress/Plugin/wp-options-editor/vulnerability/wordpress-wp-options-editor-plugin-1-1-csrf-to-privilege-escalation-vulnerability?_s_id=cve.

EU & UK References

🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-3429

Vulnerability details

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Mike Selander WP Options Editor wp-options-editor allows Privilege Escalation.This issue affects WP Options Editor: from n/a through <= 1.1.

CWE(s): CWE-352

Related Threats

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?

The CVE describes a remote CSRF vulnerability in a public-facing WordPress plugin that allows unauthenticated network attackers to achieve privilege escalation with no user interaction, directly enabling T1190 (exploiting public-facing applications for initial access) and T1068 (exploitation for privilege escalation to gain higher permissions).

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1