CVE-2025-24543: Ultimate Coming Soon CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2025-24543 Overview

CVE-2025-24543 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability [CWE-352] affecting the RSTheme Ultimate Coming Soon & Maintenance WordPress plugin. The flaw impacts all versions up to and including 1.0.9. An attacker can craft a malicious web page that, when visited by an authenticated administrator, triggers unauthorized state-changing actions on the target WordPress site. Exploitation requires user interaction, and the impact is limited to integrity of plugin settings rather than confidentiality or availability.

Critical Impact
An attacker can manipulate plugin configuration on behalf of an authenticated administrator by luring the victim to a crafted page, potentially altering maintenance mode behavior or plugin settings.

Affected Products

RSTheme Ultimate Coming Soon & Maintenance plugin for WordPress
All versions from initial release through 1.0.9
WordPress sites with the ultimate-coming-soon plugin installed and active

Discovery Timeline

2025-01-24 - CVE-2025-24543 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-24543

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability stems from missing or improper CSRF token validation on state-changing requests handled by the Ultimate Coming Soon & Maintenance plugin. WordPress provides a nonce mechanism (wp_nonce_field and check_admin_referer) to prevent CSRF attacks, but the affected plugin fails to properly enforce this on one or more request handlers through version 1.0.9.

Because the vulnerable endpoints accept authenticated requests without verifying origin, an attacker can host a malicious HTML page that automatically submits a forged request to the target WordPress site. If a logged-in administrator visits the page, the browser attaches valid session cookies, and the plugin processes the forged action as legitimate.

The impact is scoped to integrity: an attacker cannot directly read data or crash the site, but they can modify plugin configuration such as maintenance mode status, page content, or display settings. This may enable secondary attacks including defacement or denial of service through misconfiguration.

Root Cause

The root cause is the absence of anti-CSRF token verification [CWE-352] on privileged plugin actions. Requests are authorized based solely on the presence of a valid WordPress session cookie, without validating that the request originated from a legitimate plugin interface.

Attack Vector

Exploitation is network-based and requires user interaction. An attacker crafts a page containing an auto-submitting form or JavaScript that issues a request to the vulnerable plugin endpoint. The attacker then delivers the URL to an administrator through phishing, forum posts, or embedded content. When the administrator visits the page while authenticated to WordPress, the forged request executes with their privileges.

The vulnerability does not require prior credentials, but it does depend on tricking a privileged user into visiting attacker-controlled content. See the Patchstack CSRF Vulnerability advisory for additional context.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-24543

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected changes to Ultimate Coming Soon & Maintenance plugin settings without corresponding administrator activity in audit logs
HTTP POST requests to plugin admin endpoints with Referer headers pointing to external, untrusted domains
WordPress activity log entries showing configuration modifications immediately after an administrator visited an external link

Detection Strategies

Monitor web server access logs for POST requests to wp-admin endpoints associated with the ultimate-coming-soon plugin that lack a same-origin Referer or Origin header
Enable a WordPress audit logging plugin to track configuration changes and correlate them with administrator browser activity
Review web application firewall (WAF) telemetry for requests to plugin endpoints missing valid _wpnonce parameters

Monitoring Recommendations

Alert on plugin configuration changes occurring outside normal administrative windows
Track administrator session activity for anomalous cross-origin requests
Correlate WordPress admin actions with endpoint browsing telemetry to identify suspicious redirects preceding configuration changes

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-24543

Immediate Actions Required

Identify all WordPress instances running the Ultimate Coming Soon & Maintenance plugin at version 1.0.9 or earlier
Deactivate the plugin until a patched version is installed if a fix is available from RSTheme
Instruct administrators to log out of WordPress sessions before browsing untrusted external content

Patch Information

At the time of NVD publication, the advisory references version 1.0.9 as the last known vulnerable release. Administrators should consult the Patchstack advisory and the vendor's plugin repository for the latest fixed version, and update immediately once available.

Workarounds

Restrict WordPress admin panel access by IP address at the web server or firewall layer to reduce exposure
Deploy a WAF rule that blocks POST requests to plugin endpoints when the Referer or Origin header does not match the site domain
Require administrators to use dedicated browser profiles for WordPress management to isolate authenticated sessions from general browsing

bash

# Example nginx configuration enforcing same-origin for plugin admin requests
location ~ ^/wp-admin/admin(-ajax|-post)\.php$ {
    if ($http_origin !~ "^https://your-site\.example$") {
        return 403;
    }
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_pass php-upstream;
}