VulnerabilityPublished 6 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-9710: Responsive Lightbox & Gallery (WordPress plugin) · Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Affects Responsive Lightbox & Gallery (WordPress plugin)Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.3 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 09:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.3Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 11% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 6 Oct 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Responsive Lightbox & Gallery	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should immediately inventory their WordPress installations to identify the use of the Responsive Lightbox & Gallery plugin. They should upgrade the plugin to version 2.5.3 or later as soon as the patch is officially released. Until a patch is applied, administrators should consider disabling the plugin or restricting its usage to trusted users only. Implementing strict Content Security Policy (CSP) headers can help mitigate the impact by restricting the execution of unauthorized scripts. Web application firewalls (WAFs) should be configured to detect and block suspicious input patterns related to event handler injections. Regular security audits and code reviews of customizations involving this plugin are recommended. User input sanitization and output encoding best practices should be enforced across the site. Monitoring for unusual activity or signs of exploitation on affected sites is critical. Finally, educating site administrators and developers about the risks of stored XSS and secure coding practices will reduce future vulnerabilities.

Description

The Responsive Lightbox & Gallery WordPress plugin before 2.5.3 does not properly handle HTML tag attributes modifications, potentially allowing unauthenticated attackers to abuse the functionality to include event handlers and conduct Stored XSS attacks.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to web applications that utilize the Responsive Lightbox & Gallery plugin. Exploitation could lead to unauthorized execution of scripts in the browsers of site visitors, potentially compromising user data, including authentication tokens and personal information. This can result in data breaches, reputational damage, and regulatory non-compliance under GDPR. Public sector websites, e-commerce platforms, and corporate portals using this plugin are particularly vulnerable to defacement, phishing, or session hijacking attacks. The persistent nature of stored XSS increases the attack surface and duration of exposure. Additionally, attackers could leverage this vulnerability to distribute malware or conduct further attacks within the victim’s network. The impact on availability is indirect but possible if attackers use the vulnerability to disrupt site functionality or launch denial-of-service conditions via malicious scripts.

Summary

CVE-2025-9710 is a vulnerability classified under CWE-79 (Cross-Site Scripting) affecting the Responsive Lightbox & Gallery WordPress plugin prior to version 2.5.3. The vulnerability stems from improper sanitization and handling of HTML tag attributes within the plugin’s codebase, which allows unauthenticated attackers to inject malicious event handlers (such as JavaScript 'on*' attributes) into the plugin’s output. This results in stored XSS, where the malicious script is persistently saved and executed whenever a user accesses the affected page. Stored XSS can be leveraged to hijack user sessions, steal cookies, deface websites, or redirect users to malicious sites. The vulnerability does not require the attacker to be authenticated or for the victim to perform any specific action beyond visiting the compromised page, increasing its risk profile. Although no public exploits have been reported yet, the widespread use of WordPress and its plugins makes this a critical concern. The lack of a CVSS score indicates that the vulnerability is newly disclosed and pending further evaluation. The vulnerability was reserved in late August 2025 and published in early October 2025, indicating recent discovery and disclosure. The absence of patch links suggests that a fixed version may be forthcoming or recently released but not yet widely documented.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

wpscan.com/vulnerability/a45c74b7-b174-479f-9681-464601b082df/ (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 6 Oct 2025, 06:11 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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