CVE-2025-6042
WordPress · WordPress Lisfinity Core - Lisfinity Core plugin (used for pebas® Lisfinity WordPress theme)
A high-severity privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in the Lisfinity Core WordPress plugin.
Executive summary
A high-severity privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in the Lisfinity Core WordPress plugin. This flaw could allow a low-privileged attacker, such as a subscriber, to gain administrative control over an affected website. Successful exploitation could lead to a complete site compromise, data theft, and significant reputational damage.
Vulnerability
The Lisfinity Core plugin contains a privilege escalation vulnerability. This type of flaw typically occurs when a function or feature within the plugin fails to properly check if the user performing an action has the necessary permissions. An authenticated, low-privileged attacker could exploit this weakness by crafting a specific request to a vulnerable component of the plugin, allowing them to modify their user role or grant themselves administrative privileges, bypassing standard security controls.
Business impact
This is a High severity vulnerability with a CVSS score of 7.3. If exploited, an attacker could gain full administrative access to the WordPress site. The potential consequences include theft of sensitive user data, intellectual property, or customer information; defacement of the website leading to brand damage and loss of consumer trust; injection of malware to attack site visitors; and using the compromised server for further malicious activities. A complete compromise could result in significant operational disruption and financial loss.
Remediation
Immediate Action:
- Immediately update the Lisfinity Core plugin and the associated Lisfinity WordPress theme to the latest version provided by the vendor, which addresses this vulnerability.
- Review all installed plugins and themes. If the Lisfinity plugin/theme is no longer essential for business operations, it should be deactivated and completely removed to reduce the attack surface.
- Audit WordPress user accounts to ensure roles and permissions are correctly configured according to the principle of least privilege.
Proactive Monitoring:
- Monitor WordPress audit logs and web server access logs for unusual activity, such as unexpected changes to user roles (e.g., a 'subscriber' account being promoted to 'administrator').
- Look for suspicious POST requests to plugin-specific endpoints or the
admin-ajax.phpfile that may indicate an exploitation attempt. - Implement file integrity monitoring to detect unauthorized changes to core WordPress, plugin, or theme files.
Compensating Controls:
- If immediate patching is not feasible, deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with rules designed to detect and block common privilege escalation attempts.
- Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for all user accounts, especially for administrative roles, to add a critical layer of security.
- Restrict access to the WordPress admin dashboard (
/wp-admin/) to trusted IP addresses only.
Exploitation status
Public Exploit Available: false
Analyst recommendation
Given the high severity (CVSS 7.3) of this vulnerability and the potential for a complete system compromise, immediate action is strongly recommended. Organizations using the affected Lisfinity Core plugin should prioritize applying the vendor-supplied patch without delay. Although this CVE is not currently on the CISA KEV list, its impact makes it a critical vulnerability to address. Proactive patching is the most effective defense against potential future exploitation.