CVE-2025-52789 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting George Lewe's Lewe ChordPress software, specifically versions up to 3.9.7. The vulnerability is classified as CWE-352, indicating a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) weakness. CSRF vulnerabilities allow attackers to trick authenticated users into submitting unwanted requests to a web application in which they are currently authenticated. In this case, the CSRF flaw in Lewe ChordPress can be leveraged to execute Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. Stored XSS occurs when malicious scripts injected by an attacker are permanently stored on the target server (e.g., in a database) and executed in the browsers of users who access the affected content. The combination of CSRF and Stored XSS significantly raises the risk profile, as an attacker can cause an authenticated user to unknowingly submit crafted requests that inject persistent malicious scripts. These scripts can then execute arbitrary actions or steal sensitive information from other users who view the infected content. The CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.1 reflects a high severity, with the vector indicating network attack vector (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), no privileges required (PR:N), but requiring user interaction (UI:R). The scope is changed (S:C), meaning the vulnerability affects resources beyond the initially vulnerable component. Confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts are all low but present (C:L/I:L/A:L). No known exploits are currently reported in the wild, and no patches have been linked yet. The vulnerability was published on June 20, 2025, and reserved the day before. The absence of patches suggests that organizations using affected versions remain at risk until updates or mitigations are applied.

For European organizations using Lewe ChordPress, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to web application security. The ability to perform CSRF attacks that result in Stored XSS can lead to unauthorized actions performed on behalf of legitimate users, data theft, session hijacking, and potential defacement or manipulation of website content. This can damage organizational reputation, lead to regulatory compliance issues under GDPR due to potential data breaches, and disrupt business operations. Since Lewe ChordPress is a niche content management system, the impact is concentrated on organizations that rely on it for web content management, including cultural institutions, educational entities, and small to medium enterprises. The changed scope of the vulnerability means that attackers could potentially affect other components or users beyond the initially targeted ones, increasing the breadth of impact. The requirement for user interaction implies that phishing or social engineering could be used to trigger the exploit, raising the risk of targeted attacks. Given the lack of known exploits in the wild, immediate widespread impact is limited, but the vulnerability is ripe for exploitation once weaponized. European organizations with public-facing websites using this software should consider this a high priority risk.

1. Immediate mitigation should include implementing CSRF tokens or anti-CSRF mechanisms if not already present, to validate the authenticity of user requests and prevent unauthorized actions. 2. Employ Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict the execution of unauthorized scripts and reduce the impact of Stored XSS. 3. Conduct thorough input validation and output encoding on all user-supplied data to prevent injection of malicious scripts. 4. Restrict user privileges and enforce the principle of least privilege to minimize the potential damage from compromised accounts. 5. Monitor web application logs for unusual or suspicious POST requests that could indicate CSRF attempts. 6. Educate users and administrators about phishing and social engineering tactics that could trigger the vulnerability. 7. Since no official patch is currently available, consider isolating or temporarily disabling vulnerable components or restricting access to trusted users only. 8. Regularly check for vendor updates or security advisories from George Lewe and apply patches promptly once released. 9. Employ web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block CSRF and XSS attack patterns targeting Lewe ChordPress. 10. Perform security audits and penetration testing focused on CSRF and XSS vectors to identify and remediate weaknesses proactively.