CVE-2025-68885 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability identified in the Page Carbajal Custom Post Status plugin, which is used to manage custom post statuses in content management systems, likely WordPress. The vulnerability exists because the plugin fails to properly validate requests to change post statuses, allowing attackers to craft malicious requests that, when executed by an authenticated user, can perform unauthorized actions. This CSRF flaw can be chained with stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks, where malicious scripts are injected and persist within the application, potentially compromising user sessions, stealing cookies, or executing arbitrary code in the victim’s browser. The vulnerability affects all versions up to 1.1.0, with no patches currently available. The CVSS 3.1 score of 7.1 reflects the network attack vector (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), no privileges required (PR:N), but requiring user interaction (UI:R), with a scope change (S:C) and low impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:L/I:L/A:L). This means an attacker can exploit the vulnerability remotely without credentials but needs the user to interact with a malicious link or page. The scope change indicates that the vulnerability affects resources beyond the initially vulnerable component, increasing its impact. Although no known exploits are reported in the wild, the combination of CSRF and stored XSS makes this a significant threat, especially for websites relying on this plugin for content management. The lack of patch links suggests that vendors or maintainers have not yet released a fix, increasing the urgency for organizations to apply mitigations or workarounds.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to websites and web applications using the Page Carbajal Custom Post Status plugin. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized actions performed under the guise of legitimate users, including content manipulation, privilege escalation, or injection of malicious scripts that compromise user data and session integrity. This can result in data breaches, defacement, loss of user trust, and potential regulatory non-compliance under GDPR due to unauthorized data access or manipulation. The stored XSS component can facilitate broader attacks such as credential theft, malware distribution, or lateral movement within networks. Given the widespread use of WordPress and similar CMS platforms in Europe, organizations in sectors like e-commerce, media, government, and education are particularly vulnerable. The impact extends to availability if attackers disrupt content management workflows or inject scripts that degrade site performance or functionality. The high CVSS score underscores the need for urgent attention to prevent exploitation that could have cascading effects on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical web assets.

To mitigate this vulnerability, organizations should first monitor for updates or patches from the Page Carbajal plugin maintainers and apply them immediately upon release. In the absence of official patches, implement strict CSRF protections by ensuring that all state-changing requests require valid, unique CSRF tokens verified server-side. Review and harden user input validation and sanitization mechanisms to prevent stored XSS payloads from being injected or executed. Restrict plugin usage to trusted administrators and limit permissions to the minimum necessary to reduce attack surface. Employ Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with rules designed to detect and block CSRF and XSS attack patterns. Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing focused on CMS plugins and extensions. Educate users about phishing and social engineering risks to reduce the likelihood of successful user interaction exploitation. Finally, consider disabling or replacing the vulnerable plugin with a more secure alternative if immediate patching is not feasible.