CVE-2022-2405 is a medium severity vulnerability affecting the WordPress plugin "WP Popup Builder – Popup Forms, Marketing PoPuP & Newsletter" versions prior to 1.2.9. The root cause of the vulnerability is a missing authorization check combined with the absence of Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection in an AJAX action handler. Specifically, the plugin fails to verify whether the authenticated user has the appropriate permissions before allowing the deletion of arbitrary popup elements. This flaw allows any authenticated user, including those with minimal privileges such as subscribers, to delete popup content that they should not be authorized to modify. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-862 (Missing Authorization) and CWE-352 (Cross-Site Request Forgery). The CVSS v3.1 base score is 4.3, reflecting a medium severity level, with the vector indicating network attack vector, low attack complexity, requiring privileges (authenticated user), no user interaction, unchanged scope, no confidentiality or availability impact, but with integrity impact (unauthorized deletion of popups). No known exploits have been reported in the wild to date. The vulnerability was published on September 26, 2022, and affects a widely used WordPress plugin that manages popup forms and marketing newsletters. Exploitation involves sending crafted AJAX requests to the vulnerable endpoint, which lacks proper authorization and CSRF tokens, enabling privilege escalation in terms of content management within the plugin. This can disrupt marketing campaigns or user engagement strategies relying on popup forms, potentially causing business impact and reputational damage.

For European organizations using WordPress websites with the WP Popup Builder plugin, this vulnerability can lead to unauthorized deletion of popup content by low-privileged users, such as subscribers or other authenticated roles with limited access. This can disrupt marketing efforts, reduce lead generation, and degrade user experience on public-facing websites. While the vulnerability does not directly impact confidentiality or availability, the integrity of marketing content is compromised, which can indirectly affect business operations and revenue streams. Organizations relying heavily on popup-based marketing or newsletter sign-ups may experience operational disruptions. Additionally, attackers could leverage this flaw as part of a broader attack chain to undermine trust in the website or to facilitate social engineering by manipulating displayed content. Given the plugin's popularity in the WordPress ecosystem, the threat surface is significant. European organizations with strict data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR) must also consider the reputational risks associated with unauthorized content manipulation, which could lead to customer distrust or regulatory scrutiny if user engagement mechanisms are compromised.

1. Immediate update of the WP Popup Builder plugin to version 1.2.9 or later, where the authorization and CSRF checks have been implemented to remediate this vulnerability. 2. Implement role-based access control (RBAC) policies on WordPress to restrict subscriber and low-privileged users from accessing administrative AJAX endpoints. 3. Employ Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block suspicious AJAX requests targeting popup deletion endpoints. 4. Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing focusing on plugin vulnerabilities and privilege escalation paths. 5. Educate site administrators on the risks of using outdated plugins and the importance of timely patch management. 6. Monitor logs for unusual activity related to popup deletion actions, especially from low-privileged accounts. 7. Consider disabling or limiting the use of popup plugins if not critical to business operations until patched. 8. Use security plugins that enforce CSRF protections and authorization checks on AJAX requests as an additional safeguard.