CVE-2025-31826: Ni WooCommerce Cost of Goods Auth Bypass

CVE-2025-31826 Overview

CVE-2025-31826 is a missing authorization vulnerability in the Ni WooCommerce Cost Of Goods plugin developed by Anzar Ahmed. The flaw affects all plugin versions up to and including 3.2.8 and stems from incorrectly configured access control on plugin functionality. Authenticated users with low privileges can invoke actions that should be restricted to higher-privileged accounts. The issue is categorized under CWE-862 (Missing Authorization) and impacts WordPress sites running WooCommerce with this plugin installed.

Critical Impact

An authenticated attacker with minimal privileges can access or modify plugin-controlled data intended for administrative users, undermining integrity and availability of WooCommerce cost-of-goods records.

Affected Products

• Ni WooCommerce Cost Of Goods plugin versions up to and including 3.2.8
• WordPress sites running WooCommerce with the ni-woocommerce-cost-of-goods plugin
• Deployments where low-privileged authenticated users can reach admin-ajax or plugin endpoints

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-04-01 - CVE-2025-31826 published to NVD
• 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-31826

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability exists because the plugin fails to verify user capabilities before executing sensitive actions. WordPress plugins typically rely on current_user_can() checks and nonce validation to enforce access control. In this case, one or more plugin endpoints omit these checks, allowing any authenticated session to reach functionality intended for shop managers or administrators.

Because the attack vector is network-based and requires only low privileges without user interaction, exploitation is straightforward on any WordPress site that permits subscriber-level registration. Confidentiality is not directly impacted, but integrity and availability of cost-of-goods data can be altered by unauthorized callers.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing capability enforcement on plugin request handlers. The plugin registers actions that process requests without validating that the calling user holds the appropriate WordPress role or capability. This aligns with the CWE-862 pattern where authorization checks are absent from a code path that performs a privileged operation.

Attack Vector

An attacker first obtains a low-privileged WordPress account, either through open registration or credential compromise. The attacker then sends a crafted HTTP request to the vulnerable plugin endpoint, typically through wp-admin/admin-ajax.php or a plugin-specific route. Because no capability check is performed, the request executes with the plugin's intended administrative logic. Refer to the Patchstack Vulnerability Report for endpoint-level technical detail.

// No verified proof-of-concept code is publicly available for this CVE.
// See the Patchstack advisory for endpoint-level technical detail.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-31826

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected modifications to WooCommerce cost-of-goods records made by non-administrator accounts
• POST requests to plugin action handlers or admin-ajax.php originating from subscriber or customer accounts
• New or modified product cost entries with no corresponding audit trail from a shop manager account

Detection Strategies

• Review WordPress audit logs for plugin-specific actions performed by users lacking the manage_woocommerce capability
• Correlate web server access logs with user role information to flag privileged plugin endpoints hit by low-role sessions
• Inspect database change history for the plugin's tables and metadata keys for unexpected writes

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable and centralize WordPress and WooCommerce activity logging for continuous review
• Alert on HTTP requests to ni-woocommerce-cost-of-goods action names from non-admin user IDs
• Monitor for spikes in authenticated admin-ajax.php traffic that reference the plugin's action parameters

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-31826

Immediate Actions Required

• Update the Ni WooCommerce Cost Of Goods plugin to a version later than 3.2.8 once the vendor publishes a fix
• Disable the plugin if a patched version is not yet available and cost-of-goods functionality is not essential
• Audit existing WordPress user accounts and remove or downgrade unnecessary low-privileged accounts

Patch Information

At the time of publication, versions up to and including 3.2.8 are affected. Administrators should monitor the Patchstack advisory and the plugin's WordPress.org page for a remediated release, then apply it across all environments.

Workarounds

• Restrict access to wp-admin and admin-ajax.php at the web server or WAF layer for non-administrative sessions
• Disable open user registration on the WordPress site to reduce the pool of low-privileged attackers
• Apply a virtual patch through a WordPress security plugin or WAF rule that blocks plugin action names for users below shop_manager

# Example: block anonymous and low-role access to the plugin's ajax actions via a WAF rule
# Pseudocode - adapt to your WAF syntax
if request.uri matches "/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php"
   and request.body contains "action=ni_woocommerce_cost_of_goods"
   and user.role not in ["administrator", "shop_manager"]
then block