CVE-2025-22304: WP Visitor Statistics Auth Bypass Flaw

CVE-2025-22304 Overview

CVE-2025-22304 is a missing authorization vulnerability in the WP Visitor Statistics (Real Time Traffic) plugin, also known as wp-stats-manager, developed by osama.esh for WordPress. The flaw affects all plugin versions from initial release through 7.5. Attackers with low-privilege authenticated access can exploit incorrectly configured access control checks to interact with functionality that should require higher privileges. The issue is tracked under CWE-862: Missing Authorization.

Critical Impact

Authenticated users with minimal privileges can bypass access controls in the WP Visitor Statistics plugin, leading to limited integrity impact on WordPress sites running vulnerable versions.

Affected Products

• WP Visitor Statistics (Real Time Traffic) plugin (wp-stats-manager) versions through 7.5
• WordPress sites with the plugin installed and activated
• Any hosting environment exposing the plugin's endpoints to authenticated users

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-01-07 - CVE-2025-22304 published to NVD
• 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-22304

Vulnerability Analysis

The WP Visitor Statistics plugin exposes actions that lack proper capability or nonce verification. Authenticated attackers holding low-privilege roles such as Subscriber can invoke these actions and modify data that should be restricted to administrators. The vulnerability requires network-based access to the WordPress site and authentication, but no user interaction. Impact is limited to integrity, with no direct confidentiality or availability consequences documented.

Root Cause

The root cause is a failure to enforce authorization checks on sensitive plugin actions. WordPress plugins typically use current_user_can() capability checks combined with nonce validation via check_ajax_referer() or wp_verify_nonce() to gate privileged operations. In vulnerable versions of wp-stats-manager, one or more handlers accept requests from any authenticated user without validating the caller's role. This maps directly to CWE-862: Missing Authorization.

Attack Vector

An attacker first obtains any authenticated session on the target WordPress site. They then send crafted HTTP requests to the plugin's exposed endpoints, typically through admin-ajax.php or REST routes registered by the plugin. Because the vulnerable handlers do not validate the user's role, the request executes with the privileges intended for site administrators. See the Patchstack Vulnerability Report for additional details.

No verified public exploit code is available for this vulnerability.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-22304

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected requests to admin-ajax.php referencing wp-stats-manager actions from low-privilege user accounts
• Modifications to plugin settings or statistics data without corresponding administrator activity in audit logs
• Newly created or altered records in tables owned by the wp-stats-manager plugin outside of scheduled tasks

Detection Strategies

• Review web server access logs for POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php containing plugin-specific action parameters originating from non-administrator sessions
• Correlate WordPress user role data with plugin action invocations to identify privilege boundary crossings
• Deploy file integrity monitoring on the wp-content/plugins/wp-stats-manager/ directory to detect tampering

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable WordPress audit logging to capture plugin configuration changes and AJAX action calls
• Alert on any authenticated request to plugin endpoints from users lacking the manage_options capability
• Track anomalous request patterns from Subscriber-level accounts, which typically do not interact with admin-side plugin functionality

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-22304

Immediate Actions Required

• Update the WP Visitor Statistics plugin to a version later than 7.5 as soon as the vendor publishes a fix
• Audit existing WordPress user accounts and remove or downgrade unnecessary low-privilege accounts that could be leveraged for exploitation
• Review plugin-managed data and configuration for signs of unauthorized modification

Patch Information

The Patchstack Vulnerability Report tracks remediation status for this issue. Administrators should monitor the plugin's official WordPress.org page for a security release addressing versions through 7.5 and apply it immediately once available.

Workarounds

• Deactivate and remove the WP Visitor Statistics plugin until a patched version is released if the functionality is not essential
• Restrict access to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php through web application firewall rules that block plugin-specific actions for non-administrator sessions
• Disable open user registration to limit the pool of authenticated accounts available to attackers

# Example WordPress CLI command to disable the vulnerable plugin
wp plugin deactivate wp-stats-manager
wp plugin delete wp-stats-manager