CVE-2025-12586 identifies a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the evolurise Conditional Maintenance Mode plugin for WordPress, present in all versions up to and including 1.0.0. The vulnerability stems from the plugin's failure to implement nonce validation—a security token used to verify the legitimacy of requests—when toggling the maintenance mode status. This omission allows an attacker to craft a malicious request that, if an administrator clicks on a specially crafted link or visits a malicious webpage while authenticated, can cause the site to switch maintenance mode on or off without the administrator's explicit consent. Since maintenance mode typically restricts site access to visitors, unauthorized toggling can disrupt availability by either locking out legitimate users or prematurely exposing the site during maintenance. The vulnerability does not allow attackers to access sensitive data or modify content beyond the maintenance mode status, thus confidentiality and integrity remain unaffected. The attack vector is network-based (remote), requires no privileges, but does require user interaction from an administrator. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 4.3, reflecting low complexity but limited impact. No patches or exploits are currently documented, but the risk lies in potential denial of service through availability disruption. Organizations using this plugin should prioritize updating or applying mitigations to prevent unauthorized toggling of maintenance mode.

For European organizations, the primary impact of this vulnerability is potential disruption of website availability. An attacker could cause unexpected maintenance mode activation, temporarily denying access to legitimate users, customers, or partners, which could lead to loss of business, reputational damage, and operational interruptions. Although the vulnerability does not expose sensitive data or allow content tampering, the availability impact can be significant for e-commerce sites, customer portals, or public-facing services relying on WordPress with this plugin. Organizations with high traffic or critical web services may experience user dissatisfaction or financial loss during downtime. Since exploitation requires administrator interaction, the risk is somewhat mitigated by user awareness, but targeted phishing or social engineering campaigns could increase the likelihood of successful attacks. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the threat, especially as the vulnerability is publicly disclosed.

1. Immediately update the Conditional Maintenance Mode plugin to a version that includes nonce validation once available from the vendor. 2. If no patch is available, disable or uninstall the plugin to prevent exploitation. 3. Implement web application firewalls (WAF) with rules to detect and block suspicious CSRF attempts targeting maintenance mode endpoints. 4. Educate WordPress administrators on phishing and social engineering risks to reduce the chance of clicking malicious links. 5. Enforce strict administrator session management, including short session timeouts and multi-factor authentication, to limit exposure. 6. Monitor web server and WordPress logs for unusual POST requests or toggling of maintenance mode outside of scheduled maintenance windows. 7. Consider restricting access to the WordPress admin interface by IP whitelisting or VPN to reduce attack surface. 8. Regularly audit plugins for security updates and remove unused or unsupported plugins to minimize vulnerabilities.