CVE-2025-11740: wpForo Forum Plugin SQL Injection Flaw

CVE-2025-11740 Overview

CVE-2025-11740 is a SQL Injection vulnerability [CWE-89] in the wpForo Forum plugin for WordPress. The flaw affects all versions of the plugin up to and including 2.4.9. It resides in the plugin's Subscriptions Manager, where user-supplied input is not properly escaped and the SQL query lacks sufficient preparation.

Authenticated users with Subscriber-level access or higher can append SQL statements to existing queries. This allows extraction of sensitive information from the WordPress database, including user credentials, session tokens, and other confidential data stored by the site.

Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers with only Subscriber privileges can perform SQL Injection to exfiltrate sensitive data from the WordPress database.

Affected Products

wpForo Forum plugin for WordPress — all versions up to and including 2.4.9
WordPress sites permitting Subscriber-level registration with wpForo installed
Fixed in wpForo Forum version 2.4.10

Discovery Timeline

2025-11-01 - CVE-2025-11740 published to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-11740

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability exists in the Subscriptions module of wpForo, specifically in modules/subscriptions/Subscriptions.php. The Subscriptions Manager accepts a user-controlled parameter and concatenates it into an SQL statement without adequate sanitization or use of WordPress's prepared statement facilities.

Because WordPress's $wpdb->prepare() mechanism is not fully applied to the affected query, an authenticated attacker can inject additional SQL fragments. The injection is exploitable by any user role from Subscriber upward, which is the default role for self-registered users on many WordPress sites with open registration.

Successful exploitation results in confidentiality impact only. The attacker can read arbitrary data from the underlying MySQL or MariaDB database, but the flaw does not directly enable modification of data or denial of service.

Root Cause

The root cause is insufficient escaping of user-supplied input combined with an SQL query that is not correctly prepared. The plugin's Subscriptions handler builds a query string using untrusted parameters instead of binding them as parameters through wpdb::prepare() with proper placeholders such as %d or %s.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires network access to the WordPress site and a valid account with Subscriber privileges or higher. The attacker submits a crafted request to the wpForo subscriptions endpoint containing SQL syntax appended to the vulnerable parameter. The injected SQL is executed in the context of the WordPress database user, typically granting broad read access to all tables including wp_users and wp_usermeta.

No verified public proof-of-concept code is available. The patched source is visible in the WordPress Plugin Change Log, which shows the corrected input handling.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-11740

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected requests to wpForo subscription-related endpoints containing SQL keywords such as UNION, SELECT, SLEEP, or INFORMATION_SCHEMA.
Requests originating from newly registered low-privilege Subscriber accounts targeting the Subscriptions Manager.
Web server access logs showing encoded SQL payloads (for example %20UNION%20SELECT) against wpForo URLs.
Database error entries in PHP or MySQL logs referencing malformed queries from wpForo subscription functions.

Detection Strategies

Inspect HTTP request bodies and query strings sent to wpForo subscription endpoints for SQL metacharacters and boolean-based injection patterns.
Correlate authentication events for Subscriber accounts with immediate high-volume forum requests, indicating automated exploitation attempts.
Enable WordPress database query logging in staging environments to identify queries constructed without prepared statement placeholders.

Monitoring Recommendations

Alert on any successful HTTP responses to wpForo subscription URLs where request parameters contain SQL syntax.
Track new user registrations followed by requests to plugin endpoints within short time windows.
Monitor for anomalous read volumes from the WordPress database user, particularly against wp_users and wp_options tables.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-11740

Immediate Actions Required

Upgrade the wpForo Forum plugin to version 2.4.10 or later on all WordPress sites.
Audit existing Subscriber and higher-privileged accounts and remove any that are unrecognized or recently created.
Rotate WordPress administrator passwords and secret keys defined in wp-config.php if exploitation is suspected.
Review recent database queries and access logs for evidence of injection attempts predating the patch.

Patch Information

The vendor addressed the vulnerability in wpForo Forum version 2.4.10. The fix, published in the WordPress Plugin Change Log, applies proper escaping and prepared statement usage in the Subscriptions Manager. Additional analysis is available from Wordfence Vulnerability Intelligence.

Workarounds

Disable the wpForo Forum plugin until the upgrade to 2.4.10 can be applied.
Restrict new user registration on the WordPress site to reduce the pool of accounts that can reach the vulnerable endpoint.
Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule to block SQL syntax in requests to wpForo subscription endpoints.
Limit database user privileges granted to WordPress so that the account cannot read tables outside the WordPress schema.

bash

# Update wpForo via WP-CLI on the affected WordPress installation
wp plugin update wpforo --version=2.4.10

# Verify installed version after update
wp plugin get wpforo --field=version