CVE-2025-6994
Published: 06 August 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-6994 is a critical-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Themeforest (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 30.5% 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 AC-2 (Account Management) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-6994 is a privilege escalation vulnerability affecting the Reveal Listing plugin by smartdatasoft for WordPress, in versions up to and including 3.3. The flaw arises because the plugin permits users registering new accounts to arbitrarily set their own user role by supplying the 'listing_user_role' field. This improper privilege management (CWE-269) has 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), indicating critical severity due to its high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability remotely with low complexity and no user interaction required. By submitting a registration request with 'listing_user_role' set to 'administrator', they can create an account granting full administrative privileges on the targeted WordPress site, potentially allowing complete takeover including arbitrary code execution, data exfiltration, or further persistence.
Mitigation details are available in advisories such as the Wordfence threat intelligence report at https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/cd00d716-535c-41eb-a766-82079e0060e6?source=cve. The plugin's ThemeForest page at https://themeforest.net/item/reveal-directory-listing-wordpress-theme/27704330 provides additional context on the affected component. Security practitioners should update to a patched version if available and review registration endpoints for similar misconfigurations.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-23782
Vulnerability details
The Reveal Listing plugin by smartdatasoft for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in versions up to, and including, 3.3. This is due to the plugin allowing users who are registering new accounts to set their own role or by…
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supplying 'listing_user_role' field. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to gain elevated privileges by creating an account with the administrator role.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Direct privilege escalation via unauthenticated account role manipulation on public-facing WordPress plugin enables T1068 (Exploitation for Privilege Escalation), T1136 (Create Account), and T1190 (Exploit Public-Facing Application).
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Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Requires managed processes for account creation and privilege assignment, preventing unauthenticated users from self-escalating to administrator roles during registration.
Mandates validation of user inputs like 'listing_user_role' to reject unauthorized privilege specifications and block escalation exploits.
Enforces least privilege by ensuring assigned roles during registration are limited to necessary permissions, mitigating self-assigned administrator access.