CVE-2025-49354 identifies a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the WordPress plugin 'Recent Posts From Each Category' developed by Mindstien Technologies. The vulnerability exists because the plugin fails to properly validate requests to sensitive actions, allowing attackers to craft malicious web requests that, when executed by an authenticated user, perform unauthorized operations without their consent. This CSRF flaw can be chained with stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks, enabling attackers to inject persistent malicious scripts into the application. The vulnerability affects all versions up to 1.4, with no specific version range provided. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 7.1 (high), reflecting network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required, but user interaction is necessary. The scope is changed, indicating that exploitation can affect resources beyond the vulnerable component. The impact includes partial confidentiality loss, integrity compromise, and availability disruption. Although no public exploits are reported, the combination of CSRF and stored XSS increases the risk of session hijacking, data theft, or defacement. The vulnerability was reserved in June 2025 and published at the end of 2025, with no patches currently linked, indicating that mitigation is pending or in development. The plugin is commonly used in WordPress environments to display recent posts by category, making it a target for attackers aiming to compromise content management systems.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses significant risks to web applications relying on the affected plugin. Exploitation could lead to unauthorized actions performed under legitimate user sessions, including content manipulation, injection of malicious scripts, and potential compromise of user data. This can result in reputational damage, regulatory non-compliance (e.g., GDPR violations due to data leakage), and operational disruptions. Organizations with public-facing websites using this plugin are particularly vulnerable to defacement or malware distribution. The stored XSS aspect can facilitate persistent attacks against site visitors, increasing the attack surface. Given the high adoption of WordPress and similar CMS platforms across Europe, the threat could affect a broad range of sectors including government, finance, healthcare, and e-commerce. The lack of available patches increases the urgency for interim mitigations to prevent exploitation.

1. Monitor official Mindstien Technologies channels and trusted vulnerability databases for the release of security patches addressing CVE-2025-49354 and apply them promptly. 2. Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block CSRF attack patterns and suspicious POST requests targeting the plugin's endpoints. 3. Enforce strict Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to mitigate the impact of stored XSS by restricting script execution sources. 4. Disable or restrict the use of the 'Recent Posts From Each Category' plugin if it is not essential, or replace it with a more secure alternative. 5. Conduct thorough code reviews and penetration testing focused on CSRF and XSS vulnerabilities in custom or third-party plugins. 6. Educate users and administrators about the risks of interacting with untrusted links or websites that could trigger CSRF attacks. 7. Use security plugins that add CSRF tokens to forms and verify their presence on all state-changing requests. 8. Limit user privileges to the minimum necessary to reduce the impact of compromised accounts. 9. Regularly back up website data and configurations to enable quick recovery in case of compromise.