CVE-2025-24537: The Events Calendar CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2025-24537 Overview

CVE-2025-24537 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability affecting the StellarWP The Events Calendar WordPress plugin. The flaw impacts all versions up to and including 6.7.0. An attacker can craft a malicious web page that, when visited by an authenticated user, triggers unintended state-changing actions in the plugin without the user's consent.

The vulnerability is tracked under CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery. Successful exploitation requires user interaction, such as clicking a crafted link while authenticated to the target WordPress site. The Patchstack Vulnerability Analysis provides additional detail on the affected code paths.

Critical Impact
An attacker can trick authenticated WordPress users into performing plugin actions they did not intend, resulting in limited integrity and availability impact within The Events Calendar plugin.

Affected Products

StellarWP The Events Calendar WordPress plugin
All versions from initial release through 6.7.0
WordPress sites where authenticated users can be lured into visiting attacker-controlled pages

Discovery Timeline

2025-01-27 - CVE-2025-24537 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-24537

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability results from missing or insufficient anti-CSRF protections in one or more request handlers in The Events Calendar plugin. WordPress plugins are expected to validate a nonce via wp_verify_nonce() or check_admin_referer() before performing state-changing actions. When these checks are absent or improperly implemented, an authenticated user's browser can be coerced into submitting a request that the server processes as legitimate.

Exploitation requires the victim to be authenticated to the WordPress site and to interact with attacker-controlled content, typically by loading an external page or clicking a crafted link. The scope of impact is limited to functionality exposed by the plugin, and no confidentiality impact is reported for this issue.

Root Cause

The root cause is a missing CSRF token validation on plugin request handlers that perform state-changing operations. Without a bound, per-session nonce tied to the requesting user, the server cannot distinguish between a request the user intentionally initiated and one forged by a third party. Refer to the Patchstack advisory for the specific handlers involved.

Attack Vector

The attack is network-based and requires user interaction. An adversary hosts a page containing an auto-submitting form or an image tag that issues a request to the vulnerable endpoint on the target WordPress site. When an authenticated user, typically an administrator or editor, visits the page, the browser attaches the WordPress session cookies to the forged request. The plugin executes the request as if the user had initiated it. No pre-existing privileges on the target site are required from the attacker.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-24537

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected changes to event data, plugin settings, or plugin-managed content in The Events Calendar
WordPress access logs showing state-changing POST requests to plugin endpoints with Referer headers pointing to external, unrelated domains
Administrative actions recorded during time windows when the affected user was not actively working in wp-admin

Detection Strategies

Review web server access logs for requests to The Events Calendar endpoints where the Referer header is missing or originates outside the site's own domain.
Correlate WordPress audit log entries for plugin configuration or event changes against known administrator activity windows.
Deploy a web application firewall rule that flags cross-origin POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php and /wp-admin/admin-post.php targeting plugin actions.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable a WordPress activity log plugin to record all changes performed by authenticated users, including source IP and referer.
Monitor for browser sessions where the same user account appears to perform administrative actions from multiple IP addresses in short succession.
Alert on newly created or modified event records, categories, or plugin options outside of scheduled content workflows.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-24537

Immediate Actions Required

Update The Events Calendar plugin to a version later than 6.7.0 as soon as a fixed release is available from StellarWP.
Restrict administrative access to trusted networks and require re-authentication for privileged actions where possible.
Instruct administrators and editors to log out of WordPress when not actively managing the site to reduce the exploitation window.

Patch Information

The vulnerability affects The Events Calendar through version 6.7.0. Consult the Patchstack advisory and the StellarWP changelog for the specific fixed version. Apply the vendor-supplied update through the WordPress plugin manager or via WP-CLI.

Workarounds

Deploy a web application firewall rule that blocks cross-origin state-changing requests to plugin endpoints until the patch is applied.
Limit plugin administration to accounts that do not browse untrusted sites in the same browser session.
Enforce SameSite=Lax or SameSite=Strict cookie attributes on WordPress authentication cookies where the hosting stack permits.

bash

# Update The Events Calendar plugin using WP-CLI
wp plugin update the-events-calendar
wp plugin get the-events-calendar --field=version