CVE-2025-4796 in Eventin Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 08/08/2025
The Eventin plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation via account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 4.0.34. This is due to the plugin not properly validating a user's identity or capability prior to updating their details like email in the 'Eventin\Speaker\Api\SpeakerController::update_item' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers with contributor-level and above permissions to change arbitrary user's email addresses, including administrators, and leverage that to reset the user's password and gain access to their account.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/14/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-4796 resides within the Eventin plugin for WordPress, a popular event management solution that has affected all versions up to and including 4.0.34. This privilege escalation flaw represents a critical security weakness that undermines the plugin's user authentication and authorization mechanisms. The vulnerability specifically manifests in the 'Eventin\Speaker\Api\SpeakerController::update_item' function where proper validation of user identities and capabilities is absent, creating an exploitable gap in the plugin's security architecture that directly violates fundamental security principles of least privilege and proper access control.
The technical flaw stems from insufficient input validation and user capability verification within the API endpoint responsible for updating speaker information. When attackers with contributor-level permissions or higher attempt to modify user details through this function, the system fails to verify whether the requesting user has legitimate authorization to make changes to the target account. This absence of proper authentication checks creates a pathway for unauthorized modifications, particularly targeting email addresses which serve as primary authentication vectors in WordPress systems. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization issues, and specifically demonstrates weaknesses in access control validation that enable attackers to bypass normal security boundaries.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data modification, as it provides attackers with a method for account takeover and privilege escalation. By changing email addresses of administrator accounts, attackers can exploit the password reset functionality to gain full control over compromised accounts. This creates a cascading security risk where a single compromised contributor-level user can potentially elevate their privileges and gain access to administrative functions. The attack vector is particularly concerning because it requires minimal privileges to initiate and can be executed programmatically, making it suitable for automated exploitation. This scenario directly maps to ATT&CK technique T1078.004, which covers valid accounts with compromised credentials, and T1566, which involves the exploitation of vulnerabilities for initial access.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must address both immediate remediation and long-term security hardening measures. The most critical action is to upgrade to a patched version of the Eventin plugin where proper user capability validation has been implemented in the affected API endpoint. Administrators should also implement additional security controls such as monitoring API access patterns for unusual email update activities and enforcing stricter role-based access controls. The vulnerability highlights the importance of input validation and capability checks in REST API implementations, and organizations should review similar functions across their WordPress installations for comparable flaws. Implementing rate limiting on API endpoints and requiring multi-factor authentication for administrative accounts would further reduce the risk of exploitation. Security teams should also consider implementing automated scanning tools to identify other plugins with similar authorization bypass vulnerabilities that could be exploited in similar attack scenarios.