CYBERDUDEBIVASH AUTHORITY Premium Vulnerability Analysis Report [CVE-2025-14533] - Critical Privilege Escalation in ACFE WordPress Plugin

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Vulnerability Overview

CVE-2025-14533 is a critical privilege escalation vulnerability affecting the Advanced Custom Fields: Extended (ACFE) plugin — a widely used enhancement for the core Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) ecosystem.

With 100,000+ active installations, this flaw poses a severe risk to WordPress site integrity, enabling unauthenticated attackers to gain full administrative control.

  • Vulnerability Type: Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269)

  • CVSS v3.1 Score: 9.8 (Critical) 

  • Attack Vector: Network

  • Authentication Required: None

  • User Interaction: None

  • Scope: Unchanged

CVSS Vector String:

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

  • Security Researcher: Andrea Bocchetti

  • Disclosure Program: Wordfence Bug Bounty Program

 Technical Root Cause Analysis

The vulnerability originates from an insecure implementation of the insert_user function within ACFE’s front-end form handling logic.

 What Went Wrong

  • ACFE allows administrators to create front-end user registration or profile update forms

  • These forms can map custom fields directly to WordPress user attributes

  • The role parameter is not validated or restricted

  • No server-side whitelist of allowed roles exists for the form

 Exploitation Flow

  1. A site exposes a front-end registration form using ACFE

  2. The form maps a custom field to the user role

  3. An unauthenticated attacker intercepts the request

  4. The attacker injects:

    role=administrator

  5. WordPress processes the request without authorization checks

  6. A new account is created with full admin privileges

This is a classic privilege escalation via missing authorization validation — one of the most dangerous classes of WordPress vulnerabilities.

 Impact Assessment

Successful exploitation results in complete WordPress site compromise.

 Confirmed Attack Capabilities

  • Full Site Takeover

    • Delete or lock out legitimate administrators

    • Modify site configuration and security settings

  • Malicious Code Execution

    • Upload web shells via plugin/theme editors

    • Establish persistent backdoors

  • Sensitive Data Exposure

    • Access wp-config.php

    • Steal database credentials, API keys, salts

    • Exfiltrate customer and order data (WooCommerce)

  • SEO Spam & Defacement

    • Inject malicious redirects

    • Host phishing pages

    • Blacklist damage to Google rankings

 This vulnerability enables total compromise without authentication — making it extremely attractive for mass exploitation.

 Remediation & Patch Information

The issue was responsibly disclosed in December 2024 and promptly patched.

 Version Status

StatusVersion
Affected≤ 0.9.2.1
Patched0.9.2.2
SeverityCritical

 Immediate Mitigation Steps (MANDATORY)

1️ Update Immediately

WordPress Dashboard → Updates → Plugins

Ensure ACFE ≥ 0.9.2.2

2️ Audit User Accounts

Users → All Users

Look for:

  • Recently created Administrator accounts

  • Unknown usernames or emails

  • Suspicious creation timestamps

3️ Review Front-End Forms

  • Disable ACFE User Action forms

  • Remove any mapping to user role fields

  • Re-enable only after patch verification

4️ Enable WAF Protection

  • Ensure rules are updated if using:

    • Wordfence

    • Cloudflare

    • Other managed WAFs

 Wordfence Premium users received a dedicated firewall rule on December 11, 2025.

 CYBERDUDEBIVASH Security Advisory

This vulnerability highlights a recurring WordPress security anti-pattern:

 Trusting front-end input for privileged backend actions.

Any plugin handling user creation MUST enforce server-side role validation.

Organizations running WordPress in production, e-commerce, or client environments should treat this CVE as incident-level severity.

 CyberDudeBivash Recommendation

  • Enforce least-privilege user registration

  • Conduct quarterly plugin security audits

  • Deploy AI-assisted threat monitoring

  • Enable real-time WAF & file integrity monitoring

If you manage multiple WordPress properties, this CVE should trigger a fleet-wide review.



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