CVE-2026-25009 in Education Zone Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 03/25/2026
Missing Authorization vulnerability in raratheme Education Zone education-zone allows Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels.This issue affects Education Zone: from n/a through <= 1.3.8.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/31/2026
The CVE-2026-25009 vulnerability represents a critical missing authorization flaw within the raratheme Education Zone WordPress plugin, specifically impacting versions through 1.3.8. This vulnerability stems from incorrectly configured access control security levels that fail to properly validate user permissions before granting access to sensitive administrative functions. The flaw exists in the plugin's core authorization mechanisms, where proper role-based access controls are either absent or improperly implemented, allowing unauthorized users to bypass normal security restrictions.
This vulnerability falls under the CWE-285 category of Improper Authorization, which is a fundamental security weakness in access control systems. The issue manifests when the plugin fails to verify whether a requesting user possesses the appropriate privileges to perform specific administrative actions. Attackers can exploit this misconfiguration to gain unauthorized access to restricted areas of the WordPress administration panel, potentially leading to full system compromise. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it affects the core access control framework rather than isolated functions, making it a systemic security weakness within the plugin architecture.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple unauthorized access, as it can enable attackers to perform a wide range of malicious activities including but not limited to modifying educational content, altering user permissions, installing malicious plugins, and potentially accessing sensitive student or institutional data. The affected versions through 1.3.8 represent a significant attack surface since this range includes multiple iterations where the access control mechanisms were not properly validated. This allows threat actors to exploit the vulnerability across a broad spectrum of installations, making it particularly attractive for automated exploitation campaigns.
Security professionals should implement immediate mitigations including updating to the latest available version of the Education Zone plugin where the authorization flaw has been addressed. Additionally, administrators should review and harden their WordPress access control configurations, ensuring that proper user role definitions are in place and that unnecessary administrative privileges are revoked. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this vulnerability under privilege escalation techniques, specifically T1078 which involves valid accounts and T1548 which covers abuse of privileges. Organizations should also consider implementing network-level monitoring to detect suspicious access patterns and ensure that proper logging is enabled for all administrative activities. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of proper access control implementation and highlights the need for regular security audits of third-party plugins to identify and remediate such authorization flaws before they can be exploited by malicious actors.