CVE-2025-24535: SKT Donation Reflected XSS Vulnerability

CVE-2025-24535 Overview

CVE-2025-24535 is a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting the SKT Donation WordPress plugin developed by sonalsinha21. This vulnerability stems from improper neutralization of user-supplied input during web page generation, allowing attackers to inject malicious scripts that execute in victims' browsers when they visit a crafted URL.

Critical Impact

Attackers can execute arbitrary JavaScript in the context of authenticated users' sessions, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, defacement, or further exploitation of the WordPress site.

Affected Products

• SKT Donation WordPress Plugin version 1.9 and earlier
• WordPress sites running vulnerable versions of the skt-donation plugin

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-01-31 - CVE-2025-24535 published to NVD
• 2026-04-15 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-24535

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability falls under CWE-79 (Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation), commonly known as Cross-Site Scripting. The SKT Donation plugin fails to properly sanitize, validate, or encode user-controlled input before reflecting it back in the HTML response. When a user clicks on a maliciously crafted link containing JavaScript payload, the script executes within the security context of the victim's browser session on the affected WordPress site.

Reflected XSS attacks are particularly dangerous in WordPress environments because authenticated administrators have extensive privileges. If an administrator is tricked into clicking a malicious link, the attacker's script could create new admin accounts, install backdoors, modify site content, or exfiltrate sensitive configuration data.

Root Cause

The root cause is insufficient input validation and output encoding within the SKT Donation plugin. User-supplied parameters are reflected in HTTP responses without proper sanitization using WordPress security functions such as esc_html(), esc_attr(), or wp_kses(). This allows special characters like <, >, ", and ' to be interpreted as HTML/JavaScript rather than being treated as literal text.

Attack Vector

The attack requires social engineering to trick a victim into clicking a specially crafted URL. The attacker constructs a link to the vulnerable WordPress site containing a malicious JavaScript payload embedded in a vulnerable parameter. When the victim visits this URL, the server reflects the malicious input directly into the page response, and the victim's browser executes the attacker's script.

Typical attack scenarios include:

• Phishing emails containing malicious links disguised as legitimate donation page URLs
• Social media posts or comments with shortened URLs hiding the XSS payload
• Watering hole attacks on sites frequented by target WordPress administrators

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-24535

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual URL parameters containing JavaScript code, <script> tags, or event handlers (e.g., onerror, onload)
• Web server access logs showing requests with encoded payloads (%3Cscript%3E, javascript:, etc.) targeting SKT Donation plugin endpoints
• Unexpected user account creation or permission changes following administrator activity
• Reports from users about suspicious redirects or browser warnings when accessing donation pages

Detection Strategies

• Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block common XSS patterns in URL parameters
• Enable WordPress audit logging to track administrative actions and detect unauthorized changes
• Deploy browser-based XSS protection headers (Content-Security-Policy, X-XSS-Protection) to mitigate successful exploitation
• Utilize SentinelOne Singularity XDR to monitor for suspicious script execution and browser-based attack patterns

Monitoring Recommendations

• Monitor web server logs for requests containing suspicious characters or encoded JavaScript payloads
• Set up alerts for failed or successful authentication attempts following visits to donation-related pages
• Review WordPress user creation and privilege modification events regularly
• Implement content integrity monitoring to detect unauthorized page modifications

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-24535

Immediate Actions Required

• Update the SKT Donation plugin to a patched version if available from the plugin developer
• If no patch is available, deactivate and remove the skt-donation plugin until a fix is released
• Review WordPress user accounts for any unauthorized additions or privilege escalations
• Clear browser caches and advise administrators to avoid clicking links from untrusted sources

Patch Information

No official patch information was available at the time of this writing. Administrators should monitor the Patchstack Vulnerability Report for updates regarding remediation.

Organizations using SentinelOne can leverage Singularity XDR's application inventory capabilities to identify WordPress installations running vulnerable plugin versions across their environment.

Workarounds

• Disable or uninstall the SKT Donation plugin until a security patch is released
• Implement strict Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to prevent inline script execution
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall with XSS protection rules in front of the WordPress site
• Restrict administrative access to the WordPress site to trusted IP addresses only
• Use browser extensions that block JavaScript execution from untrusted sources

# Example Apache .htaccess Content-Security-Policy header
Header set Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; frame-ancestors 'self';"

# Example Nginx configuration
add_header Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; frame-ancestors 'self';" always;