CVE-2025-2111 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability identified in the Insert Headers And Footers plugin for WordPress, maintained by hiddenpearls. The vulnerability exists in all versions up to and including 3.1.1 due to missing or incorrect nonce validation in the 'custom_plugin_set_option' function. Nonces in WordPress are security tokens used to verify that requests originate from legitimate users and prevent CSRF attacks. Without proper nonce validation, attackers can craft malicious requests that, when executed by an authenticated administrator (via clicking a link or visiting a malicious site), cause unauthorized changes to plugin options. Specifically, this vulnerability can be exploited to modify critical site settings such as changing the default user role for new registrations to 'administrator' and enabling user registration, thereby allowing attackers to create accounts with administrative privileges. However, exploitation requires the WPBRIGADE_SDK__DEV_MODE constant to be set to true, which is typically a development mode setting and not enabled by default in production environments. The vulnerability has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5, indicating high severity with network attack vector, high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, but requiring user interaction and high attack complexity. No public exploits have been reported yet, but the potential for privilege escalation and site takeover is significant. The vulnerability was published on April 19, 2025, and assigned by Wordfence. No official patches or updates are linked in the provided data, so mitigation may require manual configuration changes or disabling the vulnerable plugin until a fix is available.

If exploited, this vulnerability allows attackers to escalate privileges by changing site options to enable user registration and set the default role to administrator. This can lead to unauthorized administrative access, allowing attackers to control the WordPress site fully. Consequences include data theft, website defacement, malware injection, and use of the compromised site as a launchpad for further attacks. The impact affects confidentiality (unauthorized data access), integrity (unauthorized changes to site content and settings), and availability (potential site disruption). Since the attack requires tricking an administrator into performing an action and a specific development mode setting enabled, the ease of exploitation is moderate, but the scope is broad given the widespread use of WordPress and the popularity of the Insert Headers And Footers plugin. Organizations with publicly accessible WordPress sites using this plugin and development mode enabled are at significant risk of site compromise and reputational damage.

1. Immediately verify if the WPBRIGADE_SDK__DEV_MODE constant is set to true in the WordPress configuration; if so, disable it in production environments to prevent exploitation. 2. Disable or uninstall the Insert Headers And Footers plugin if it is not essential or until a security patch is released. 3. Monitor for plugin updates from hiddenpearls and apply patches promptly once available. 4. Implement web application firewalls (WAFs) with rules to detect and block suspicious CSRF attempts targeting this plugin's endpoints. 5. Educate site administrators about the risks of clicking untrusted links while logged into administrative accounts. 6. Restrict administrative access to trusted networks or use multi-factor authentication to reduce the risk of unauthorized actions. 7. Regularly audit user roles and registrations to detect unauthorized privilege escalations. 8. Consider using security plugins that enforce nonce validation and CSRF protections across plugins. 9. Review and harden WordPress security configurations, including disabling user registration if not required.