CVE-2025-26871
Access Control in Wpdeveloper Essential Blocks ≤ 4.8.4
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:NSummary
CVE-2025-26871 is a medium-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Wpdeveloper Essential Blocks. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 32th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-25 (Reference Monitor) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2025-26871 is a missing authorization vulnerability (CWE-862) in the Essential Blocks for Gutenberg WordPress plugin by WPDeveloper. The issue stems from exploiting incorrectly configured access control security levels and affects all versions of the plugin from n/a through 4.8.3. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 4.3 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N), indicating medium severity with network accessibility, low attack complexity, and low privilege requirements.
A low-privileged authenticated attacker, such as a WordPress user with contributor or similar access, can exploit this vulnerability remotely without user interaction. Exploitation enables limited unauthorized modifications to plugin resources (low integrity impact), potentially allowing alterations to blocks or settings that the attacker should not access.
The Patchstack advisory details the broken access control issue in version 4.8.3 and recommends updating the Essential Blocks for Gutenberg plugin to a patched version beyond 4.8.3 as the primary mitigation. Further details are available at https://patchstack.com/database/Wordpress/Plugin/essential-blocks/vulnerability/wordpress-essential-blocks-plugin-4-8-3-broken-access-control-vulnerability?_s_id=cve.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-5384
Vulnerability Data
Missing Authorization vulnerability in WPDeveloper Essential Blocks for Gutenberg essential-blocks allows Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels.This issue affects Essential Blocks for Gutenberg: from n/a through <= 4.8.3.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
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Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-3 directly requires enforcement of authorization decisions on every access request, structurally eliminating missing authorization checks.
AC-24 mandates that access control decisions are applied to each request, preventing bypass of authorization logic.
AC-25 requires a tamperproof, always-invoked reference monitor that ensures authorization checks cannot be omitted.
AC-6 reduces the set of actions reachable without proper authorization, limiting blast radius of missing checks.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Explicitly requires defining, enforcing, and reviewing authorizations and least privilege, directly preventing missing authorization checks.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Requiring authentication and credentials before any access occurs eliminates the absence of authorization checks that would otherwise allow an unauthenticated actor to reach protected resources.
Requiring formal authorization of every access request before rights are granted ensures that checks for required permissions are performed, preventing missing authorization checks from being introduced.
Mandatory authorization checks and central records of granted rights ensure that every access attempt is preceded by an explicit decision rather than relying on missing checks.
Segregating the approval of access rights from their implementation provides an independent check that reduces the impact of missing authorization checks in the resulting system configuration.
By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.
Defining authorization responsibilities and reviewing risk-treatment progress throughout the project lifecycle catches missing authorization checks before the system is deployed.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
- V-248581 OL 8 must require users to provide a password for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862
- V-252656 The OL 8 operating system must not be configured to bypass password requirements for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862
RHEL 7 (2 rules)
- V-251704 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not be configured to bypass password requirements for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862
- V-204429 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that users must provide a password for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862