VulnerabilityPublished 3 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-11241: Yoast SEO Premium (WordPress plugin) · Basic XSS

Affects Yoast SEO Premium (WordPress plugin)Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.4 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.4Medium

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

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 26% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
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: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
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 3 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
Yoast SEO Premium	Affected =25.7	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-11241, organizations should immediately upgrade Yoast SEO Premium to a patched version once available. Until a patch is released, restrict Contributor and higher roles to trusted users only, minimizing the risk of malicious post creation. Implement strict content security policies (CSP) to limit the execution of unauthorized scripts in browsers. Employ web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block suspicious HTML attribute injections in post content. Regularly audit user roles and permissions to ensure least privilege principles are enforced. Additionally, sanitize and validate all user-generated content at multiple layers, including server-side filtering beyond the plugin’s regex. Monitor logs for unusual post creation or modification activities. Educate content creators and administrators about the risks of XSS and the importance of cautious privilege assignment. Finally, maintain up-to-date backups to enable rapid recovery if exploitation occurs.

Description

The Yoast SEO Premium plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions 25.7 to 25.9 due to a flawed regex used to remove an attribute in post content, which can be abused to inject arbitrary HTML attributes, including JavaScript event handlers. This vulnerability allows a user with Contributor access or higher to create a post containing a malicious JavaScript payload.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-11241 is the potential for attackers with Contributor-level access to inject persistent malicious scripts into WordPress posts, which execute in the browsers of users who view the content. This can lead to theft of authentication cookies, enabling session hijacking and unauthorized administrative actions. The integrity of site content and user data can be compromised, and attackers may leverage this foothold to escalate privileges or pivot to other parts of the network. Confidentiality is partially impacted due to potential data exposure via script execution. Availability is not directly affected. Organizations relying on WordPress sites with Yoast SEO Premium are at risk of reputational damage, data breaches, and unauthorized content manipulation. The vulnerability's exploitation could be particularly damaging for high-profile websites, e-commerce platforms, and sites handling sensitive user data. Since the vulnerability requires authenticated access, insider threats or compromised contributor accounts pose a significant risk vector.

CWE-80Improper Neutralization of Script-Related HTML Tags in a Web Page (Basic XSS) (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighOWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special characters such as "<", ">", and "&" that could be interpreted as web-scripting elements when they are sent to a downstream component that processes web pages.
Implementation
Carefully check each input parameter against a rigorous positive specification (allowlist) defining the specific characters and format allowed. All input should be neutralized, not just parameters that the user is supposed to specify, but all data in the request, including hidden fields, cookies, headers, the URL…
Implementation · Output Encoding
Use and specify an output encoding that can be handled by the downstream component that is reading the output. Common encodings include ISO-8859-1, UTF-7, and UTF-8.
Implementation
With Struts, write all data from form beans with the bean's filter attribute set to true.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
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)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Targeting Non-Script Elements (opens in a new tab)
PHP Remote File Inclusion (opens in a new tab)
XSS Through HTTP Query Strings (opens in a new tab)
XSS Through HTTP Headers (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Feb 2026, 18:53 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-80

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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