CVE-2025-46443 Overview
CVE-2025-46443 is a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the Adam Pery Animate WordPress plugin. The flaw affects all versions of Animate up to and including 0.5. An authenticated attacker with low privileges can coerce the server to issue arbitrary outbound HTTP requests. This enables interaction with internal services, cloud metadata endpoints, or other resources reachable from the WordPress host. The issue is tracked under CWE-918: Server-Side Request Forgery.
Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers can pivot from the WordPress application into internal network segments and access resources that are not directly exposed to the internet.
Affected Products
- Adam Pery Animate plugin for WordPress
- All versions from initial release through 0.5
- WordPress installations with the Animate plugin activated
Discovery Timeline
- 2025-04-24 - CVE-2025-46443 published to the National Vulnerability Database
- 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database
Technical Details for CVE-2025-46443
Vulnerability Analysis
The Animate plugin fails to validate user-controlled URLs before issuing server-side HTTP requests. An authenticated user with low privileges can supply a crafted URL parameter. The plugin then fetches that URL from the WordPress server, returning or acting on the response. This behavior allows attackers to probe internal-only services, request cloud instance metadata, or scan the internal network from the vantage of the WordPress host.
The attack complexity is rated high, indicating that specific preconditions or timing may be required for successful exploitation. Impact spans confidentiality and integrity at a limited scope, and the scope changes because the affected component can influence resources beyond its own security authority.
Root Cause
The root cause is missing validation and allow-listing of destination hosts in the plugin's outbound request logic. The plugin does not restrict schemes, block private IP ranges (RFC 1918), or reject loopback and link-local addresses such as 169.254.169.254. Without these controls, any URL supplied by an authenticated user is fetched by the server.
Attack Vector
Exploitation requires network access to the WordPress instance and low-privileged authenticated access. The attacker submits a request to a plugin endpoint that accepts a URL parameter. The server retrieves the attacker-supplied URL, potentially reaching internal APIs, cloud metadata services (http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/), or reflected file endpoints. See the Patchstack SSRF Vulnerability Report for advisory details.
No public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. The vulnerability is described in prose only.
Detection Methods for CVE-2025-46443
Indicators of Compromise
- Outbound HTTP requests from the WordPress web server to internal IP ranges, loopback addresses, or cloud metadata endpoints
- Unexpected DNS lookups originating from the WordPress process for internal hostnames
- Web server access logs showing authenticated requests to Animate plugin endpoints with URL parameters pointing to non-public destinations
Detection Strategies
- Inspect web access logs for requests to Animate plugin routes containing http://, https://, file://, or gopher:// values in query parameters or POST bodies
- Monitor egress traffic from web servers for connections to RFC 1918 ranges, 127.0.0.0/8, and 169.254.169.254
- Correlate authenticated WordPress sessions with anomalous outbound request patterns from the PHP worker process
Monitoring Recommendations
- Enable WordPress audit logging to capture actions performed by low-privileged accounts interacting with the Animate plugin
- Deploy egress filtering at the network boundary and log denied connections for investigation
- Alert on any HTTP requests from the web server to cloud metadata service IPs on AWS, Azure, or GCP
How to Mitigate CVE-2025-46443
Immediate Actions Required
- Deactivate and remove the Animate plugin until a patched version is confirmed available
- Review WordPress user accounts and revoke unnecessary low-privileged access
- Restrict outbound network access from the WordPress host to only required destinations
Patch Information
No fixed version is listed in the advisory at the time of publication. The vulnerability affects Animate through version 0.5, and no later patched release is identified in NVD or the Patchstack SSRF Vulnerability Report. Monitor the plugin repository for updates and apply them as soon as a fixed version is released.
Workarounds
- Remove the Animate plugin entirely if a patched version is not available
- Configure a web application firewall rule to block requests to Animate endpoints that include URL parameters pointing to internal or metadata addresses
- Enforce Instance Metadata Service v2 (IMDSv2) on AWS EC2 instances to require session tokens for metadata access
- Apply egress firewall rules that block the WordPress host from reaching 169.254.169.254, 127.0.0.0/8, and internal management subnets
# Configuration example: block metadata and internal ranges from the web tier
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 169.254.169.254 -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 10.0.0.0/8 -p tcp --dport 80 -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 172.16.0.0/12 -p tcp --dport 80 -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 192.168.0.0/16 -p tcp --dport 80 -j DROP
Disclaimer: This content was generated using AI. While we strive for accuracy, please verify critical information with official sources.
