CVE-2025-31444
Published: 28 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-31444 is a high-severity CSRF (CWE-352) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 49.4% 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-10 (Information Input Validation).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-31444 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the youtag ShowTime Slideshow WordPress plugin (showtime-slideshow) that enables Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). The flaw affects all versions of the plugin up to and including 1.6, as documented in the CVE published on 2025-03-28. It is associated with CWE-352 and 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), indicating network accessibility, low attack complexity, no required privileges, user interaction, changed scope, and low impacts across confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Attackers can exploit this vulnerability without authentication by luring a targeted user—typically a site administrator with appropriate privileges—into interacting with a malicious webpage. This webpage would forge a request to the vulnerable plugin endpoint, injecting a malicious XSS payload that is stored persistently, such as within slideshow content. Once stored, the XSS can execute in the context of other users viewing the affected slideshow, potentially leading to session hijacking, data theft, or further site compromise, though limited by the low impact ratings.
Mitigation guidance is available in the Patchstack advisory at https://patchstack.com/database/Wordpress/Plugin/showtime-slideshow/vulnerability/wordpress-showtime-slideshow-plugin-1-6-cross-site-request-forgery-csrf-to-stored-xss-vulnerability?_s_id=cve, which details the vulnerability in the context of the WordPress plugin ecosystem. Security practitioners should verify plugin updates beyond version 1.6 and implement general CSRF protections, such as token validation, on affected sites.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-8609
Vulnerability details
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in youtag ShowTime Slideshow showtime-slideshow allows Stored XSS.This issue affects ShowTime Slideshow: from n/a through <= 1.6.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
CSRF to stored XSS in public-facing WordPress plugin enables T1190 (exploit public-facing app) for initial injection and T1185 (browser session hijacking) via persistent malicious script execution leading to session theft.
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Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Timely remediation through patching the vulnerable ShowTime Slideshow plugin directly eliminates the CSRF to Stored XSS flaw affecting versions up to 1.6.
Enforcing session authenticity with anti-CSRF tokens prevents unauthenticated attackers from forging requests to inject persistent XSS payloads into slideshow content.
Validating inputs at the plugin's slideshow endpoint rejects malicious XSS payloads, blocking their storage and subsequent execution for other users.