VulnerabilityPublished 14 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-10357: Simple SEO (WordPress plugin) · Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Affects Simple SEO (WordPress plugin)Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.1 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 13:47 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.1Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 9% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 14 Oct 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Simple SEO	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Immediately update the Simple SEO WordPress plugin to version 2.0.32 or later, where the vulnerability is fixed.
Audit and restrict contributor-level user permissions to the minimum necessary, ensuring that only trusted users have such access.
Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block common XSS payloads targeting the affected plugin parameters.
Enable Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to reduce the impact of potential XSS by restricting script execution sources.
Regularly review and sanitize user-generated content, especially from contributors, before publishing.
Monitor logs and user activity for unusual behavior indicative of exploitation attempts.
Educate site administrators and content contributors about the risks of XSS and safe content practices.
Consider using security plugins that provide additional input validation and output escaping for WordPress.
Test the website after updates to ensure no residual vulnerabilities remain.
Maintain a robust backup and incident response plan to quickly recover from any successful attacks.

Description

CVE-2025-10357 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Simple SEO WordPress plugin versions before 2.0.32. It arises because the plugin fails to properly sanitize and escape certain parameters when rendering them on pages. This flaw allows users with as low a privilege as the contributor role to inject malicious scripts, potentially affecting other users who view the compromised content. The vulnerability requires user interaction and network access but no elevated privileges beyond contributor. Although no known exploits are currently reported in the wild, the vulnerability's scope includes all WordPress sites using affected versions of Simple SEO. European organizations using this plugin could face risks of session hijacking, defacement, or phishing attacks. Mitigation involves promptly updating the plugin to version 2.0.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a risk primarily to the confidentiality and integrity of web applications running WordPress with the Simple SEO plugin. Attackers with contributor-level access—potentially internal users or compromised accounts—can inject malicious scripts that execute in the browsers of higher-privileged users or site visitors. This can lead to session hijacking, unauthorized actions, defacement, or phishing attacks, undermining trust and potentially exposing sensitive data. The impact is heightened for organizations relying on WordPress for public-facing websites or intranet portals where contributors have content publishing rights. Given the widespread use of WordPress across Europe, especially among small and medium enterprises, educational institutions, and public sector websites, the vulnerability could facilitate targeted attacks or lateral movement within compromised environments. Although no availability impact is indicated, the reputational damage and potential data breaches could have regulatory consequences under GDPR and other data protection laws. The medium severity score suggests a moderate but actionable risk that should be addressed promptly to prevent exploitation.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

wpscan.com/vulnerability/24fcf8ef-603f-4e1f-905d-fbaf989a617f/ (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 21 Oct 2025, 11:59 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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