CVE-2025-8942 in WP Hotel Booking Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 09/18/2025
The WP Hotel Booking WordPress plugin before 2.2.3 lacks proper server-side validation for review ratings, allowing an attacker to manipulate the rating value (e.g., sending negative or out-of-range values) by intercepting and modifying requests.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/18/2025
The WP Hotel Booking WordPress plugin vulnerability CVE-2025-8942 represents a critical security flaw in the plugin's server-side validation mechanisms for user review ratings. This issue affects versions prior to 2.2.3 and exposes the plugin to manipulation attacks where malicious actors can intercept HTTP requests and alter rating values to arbitrary negative or out-of-range numbers. The vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation on the server-side, allowing attackers to bypass client-side restrictions and submit malformed data directly to the plugin's review submission endpoints. This weakness enables unauthorized modification of booking review data, potentially compromising the integrity of user feedback systems and affecting the credibility of hotel booking information within WordPress environments.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability aligns with CWE-20, "Improper Input Validation," which occurs when software fails to validate or incorrectly validates input data. The flaw specifically manifests in the plugin's handling of HTTP POST requests containing review rating parameters, where the server-side code does not adequately sanitize or validate the numeric rating values before processing or storing them in the database. Attackers can exploit this by intercepting legitimate review submission requests using man-in-the-middle techniques or by directly crafting malicious requests to the plugin's API endpoints, thereby injecting invalid rating values that may range from negative numbers to values exceeding the expected maximum rating scale.
The operational impact of CVE-2025-8942 extends beyond simple data corruption, potentially enabling more sophisticated attack vectors within the broader WordPress ecosystem. This vulnerability can be leveraged as part of a broader attack chain, aligning with ATT&CK technique T1213.002 for Data from Information Repositories, where attackers may manipulate review data to influence user decisions or conduct social engineering campaigns. The manipulation of review ratings could significantly impact hotel booking decisions, potentially leading to reputational damage for businesses using the plugin, and may also affect search engine optimization rankings based on fake or manipulated review data. Additionally, the vulnerability could serve as a stepping stone for further exploitation, as compromised review systems might be used to gather intelligence about booking patterns or customer preferences.
Security mitigations for CVE-2025-8942 primarily focus on implementing robust server-side input validation and sanitization practices. Organizations should immediately upgrade to WP Hotel Booking plugin version 2.2.3 or later, which includes proper validation mechanisms for review ratings. The recommended approach involves implementing strict type checking, range validation, and sanitization of all incoming rating values, ensuring that only legitimate numerical values within predefined ranges are accepted. Additional protective measures include implementing proper authentication and authorization checks for review submission endpoints, using secure communication protocols such as HTTPS to prevent request interception, and implementing rate limiting to prevent abuse of the review submission functionality. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of following security best practices such as the principle of least privilege and defense in depth, ensuring that input validation occurs at multiple layers of the application architecture rather than relying solely on client-side validation mechanisms that can be easily bypassed.