CVE-2025-24982: Activity Log WinterLock CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2025-24982 Overview

CVE-2025-24982 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Activity Log WinterLock WordPress plugin. The flaw affects all versions prior to 1.2.5. An attacker who convinces an authenticated user to view a malicious page can trigger unauthorized deletion of activity log data. The vulnerability is tracked under CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery.

Critical Impact
An attacker can delete activity log entries by tricking a logged-in administrator into visiting a crafted page, potentially erasing forensic evidence of prior actions on the WordPress site.

Affected Products

Activity Log WinterLock WordPress plugin versions prior to 1.2.5
WordPress installations with the WinterLock plugin enabled
Administrative sessions authenticated against affected WinterLock versions

Discovery Timeline

2025-02-04 - CVE-2025-24982 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-24982

Vulnerability Analysis

The Activity Log WinterLock plugin exposes a state-changing action for clearing log data without validating the origin of the request. The plugin fails to verify a WordPress nonce or a comparable anti-CSRF token before executing the deletion routine. An attacker exploits this by hosting a page that automatically submits a request to the vulnerable endpoint. When a logged-in administrator visits that page, the browser attaches the authenticated session cookies, and the plugin processes the delete operation as if the administrator issued it.

The attack requires user interaction and no privileges on the target site. Exploitation results in the loss of integrity for stored activity logs while confidentiality and availability of the broader WordPress instance remain intact. Because activity logs frequently support incident investigation, silent deletion can obscure prior attacker actions and hinder forensic response.

Root Cause

The root cause is a missing CSRF protection mechanism on the log-deletion handler. WordPress provides wp_nonce_field() and check_admin_referer() primitives specifically for this scenario, but the affected WinterLock versions do not invoke them on the vulnerable action. Additionally, the handler relies solely on cookie-based session authentication, which browsers transmit automatically on cross-origin requests.

Attack Vector

Exploitation occurs over the network and requires the victim to visit attacker-controlled content while authenticated to the WordPress admin interface. The attacker crafts an HTML page containing an auto-submitting form or image tag targeting the WinterLock delete endpoint. No credentials, no server-side foothold, and no interaction with the WordPress site beyond the victim's active session are required. See the JVN #94806805 Advisory for coordinated disclosure details and the WordPress Plugin Information page for release history.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-24982

Indicators of Compromise

Unexplained clearing or truncation of WinterLock activity log tables within the WordPress database.
HTTP POST requests to WinterLock administrative endpoints with Referer headers pointing to external domains.
Web server access logs showing log-deletion requests originating from administrator sessions that did not visit the plugin UI beforehand.

Detection Strategies

Monitor WordPress wp-admin request patterns for state-changing operations that lack expected navigation precursors from the plugin's own pages.
Correlate administrator login events with subsequent log-clear operations to identify anomalous sequences triggered from external referrers.
Alert on cross-origin Referer or Origin headers on requests targeting WinterLock action handlers.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable WordPress audit logging at the web server or reverse proxy layer to capture full request metadata for wp-admin endpoints.
Retain activity log database snapshots off-host so that a successful CSRF deletion does not eliminate the forensic record.
Track plugin version inventory across managed WordPress sites to identify installations still running versions prior to 1.2.5.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-24982

Immediate Actions Required

Update the Activity Log WinterLock plugin to version 1.2.5 or later on all WordPress installations.
Audit existing activity log data for unexpected gaps that may indicate prior exploitation.
Require administrators to log out of the WordPress admin console when not actively performing management tasks.

Patch Information

The vendor addressed CVE-2025-24982 in Activity Log WinterLock version 1.2.5. Administrators should install the update through the WordPress plugin management interface or by downloading the fixed release from the WordPress plugin directory. Verify the installed version reports 1.2.5 or later after the update completes.

Workarounds

Deactivate the WinterLock plugin until the patched version can be deployed if immediate upgrade is not feasible.
Restrict access to wp-admin by IP allowlist at the web server or WAF layer to limit which browsers can reach the vulnerable endpoint.
Deploy browser session isolation for administrators, ensuring admin sessions are not active when browsing untrusted sites.

bash

# Example: restrict wp-admin access by source IP in nginx
location ^~ /wp-admin/ {
    allow 203.0.113.0/24;
    deny all;
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}