CVE-2025-46241 is a vulnerability identified in the codepeople Appointment Booking Calendar plugin, specifically affecting versions up to 1.3.92. The vulnerability is categorized as a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) issue (CWE-352) that enables an attacker to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of an authenticated user. In this case, the CSRF vulnerability facilitates the execution of SQL Injection attacks, which can lead to unauthorized database manipulation. The absence of a patch at the time of disclosure indicates that the vulnerability remains unmitigated, increasing the risk for affected users. The attack vector involves tricking an authenticated user into submitting a crafted request that the application processes without verifying the legitimacy of the request origin. This can allow attackers to inject malicious SQL commands, potentially leading to data leakage, data corruption, or complete compromise of the backend database. The vulnerability affects the Appointment Booking Calendar plugin, which is commonly used to manage scheduling and booking functionalities on websites, often integrated into content management systems or standalone web applications. The technical details confirm that the vulnerability was reserved and published on April 22, 2025, with enrichment from CISA, but no known exploits have been observed in the wild yet. The combination of CSRF and SQL Injection is particularly dangerous because it bypasses typical input validation and authentication controls by exploiting the trust between the user and the application, thereby escalating the impact of the SQL Injection attack.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk especially for businesses and institutions relying on the Appointment Booking Calendar plugin for customer engagement and operational scheduling. The potential impacts include unauthorized access to sensitive customer data, manipulation or deletion of booking records, and disruption of service availability. This could lead to reputational damage, regulatory non-compliance (notably with GDPR due to potential personal data exposure), and financial losses. Organizations in sectors such as healthcare, education, hospitality, and public services that use appointment booking systems are particularly vulnerable. The exploitation of this vulnerability could also serve as a foothold for further network intrusion or lateral movement within an organization’s IT infrastructure. Given the plugin’s role in managing user interactions and data, the integrity and availability of these systems are critical, and their compromise could disrupt business continuity and customer trust.

1. Immediate mitigation should include disabling or restricting access to the Appointment Booking Calendar plugin until a security patch is released by the vendor. 2. Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block suspicious requests that may exploit CSRF or SQL Injection vectors, focusing on anomalous POST requests and unusual parameter values. 3. Enforce strict CSRF tokens on all state-changing requests within the application to ensure that requests originate from legitimate users. 4. Conduct a thorough audit of database queries related to the plugin to identify and remediate any SQL Injection vulnerabilities by using parameterized queries or prepared statements. 5. Monitor web server logs for unusual activity patterns indicative of CSRF or SQL Injection attempts. 6. Educate users and administrators about the risks of CSRF attacks and encourage the use of multi-factor authentication to reduce the risk of session hijacking. 7. Prepare an incident response plan specifically for web application attacks, including rapid patch deployment and communication strategies. 8. Engage with the vendor to obtain timely updates and verify the integrity of plugin updates before deployment. 9. For organizations with custom integrations, review and harden API endpoints and input validation mechanisms related to the booking calendar functionality.