CVE-2025-28868 identifies a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the ZipList Recipe plugin, a WordPress plugin used for managing and displaying recipes. The vulnerability exists in versions up to and including 3.1, allowing attackers to craft malicious web requests that, when visited by an authenticated user, cause the user’s browser to perform unintended actions on the vulnerable site. CSRF attacks exploit the trust a web application places in the user’s browser by leveraging the user's authenticated session to perform state-changing operations without explicit user consent. This vulnerability does not require the attacker to have direct access to the victim’s credentials but does require the victim to be logged into the affected site and to visit a malicious page. The plugin’s lack of adequate CSRF protections (such as missing or ineffective anti-CSRF tokens) enables this attack vector. Currently, there are no known public exploits or patches available, and no CVSS score has been assigned. However, the vulnerability is publicly disclosed and should be considered for immediate remediation. The plugin is typically deployed on WordPress sites that manage recipe content, which can be targeted to manipulate or disrupt content integrity or user data. The absence of a CVSS score necessitates an expert severity assessment based on the attack vector, impact, and exploitability.

The primary impact of this CSRF vulnerability is on the integrity and potentially the availability of the affected web application’s functionality. An attacker could cause authenticated users to unknowingly perform actions such as modifying, deleting, or adding recipe content, changing user settings, or other state-changing operations supported by the plugin. This can lead to unauthorized content manipulation, defacement, or disruption of service. While confidentiality impact is limited since the attack does not directly expose sensitive data, the integrity and trustworthiness of the site’s content and user actions are compromised. For organizations relying on ZipList Recipe for content management, this could damage reputation, user trust, and operational continuity. The ease of exploitation is moderate since it requires user authentication and user interaction (visiting a malicious site). The scope is limited to sites using the vulnerable plugin, but given WordPress’s large market share, the number of potentially affected sites is significant. No known exploits in the wild reduce immediate risk but do not eliminate the threat. Without mitigation, attackers could leverage this vulnerability in targeted phishing or social engineering campaigns to disrupt business operations or manipulate content.

To mitigate this CSRF vulnerability, organizations should first verify if they are using the ZipList Recipe plugin version 3.1 or earlier and plan to update to a patched version once available. In the absence of an official patch, administrators should implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block suspicious CSRF attempts targeting the plugin’s endpoints. Enforcing strict SameSite cookie attributes can reduce CSRF risks by limiting cross-origin requests. Site owners should ensure that all state-changing requests require valid anti-CSRF tokens and user interaction confirmations. Reviewing and hardening user roles and permissions can limit the impact of unauthorized actions. Educating users about phishing and social engineering risks can reduce the likelihood of successful exploitation. Monitoring logs for unusual activity related to recipe management functions can help detect attempted exploitation. Finally, consider disabling or replacing the plugin with alternatives that follow secure coding practices if immediate patching is not feasible.