CVE-2025-47681: Max Access Accessibility Toolbar CSRF Flaw

CVE-2025-47681 Overview

CVE-2025-47681 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Ability, Inc Web Accessibility with Max Access WordPress plugin (accessibility-toolbar). The flaw affects all plugin versions up to and including 2.0.9. An attacker can craft a malicious page or link that, when visited by an authenticated WordPress user, triggers unintended state-changing requests against the vulnerable site. The vulnerability is tracked under CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery and requires user interaction to succeed.

Critical Impact
Attackers can trick authenticated users into executing unauthorized plugin actions, resulting in limited integrity impact on WordPress sites running the vulnerable plugin.

Affected Products

Ability, Inc Web Accessibility with Max Access (accessibility-toolbar) plugin for WordPress
All versions from initial release through 2.0.9
WordPress sites with the plugin installed and active

Discovery Timeline

2025-05-07 - CVE-2025-47681 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-47681

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability originates from missing or improperly validated anti-CSRF tokens in one or more request handlers within the accessibility-toolbar plugin. WordPress plugins are expected to validate nonces on state-changing requests using wp_verify_nonce() or the check_admin_referer() helper. When these checks are absent, the browser will attach the victim's authenticated session cookies to any cross-origin request, allowing an attacker-hosted page to invoke plugin actions on the victim's behalf.

Exploitation requires user interaction, such as clicking a crafted link or loading an attacker-controlled page while logged in to the target WordPress site. The confidentiality impact is none, but integrity is affected because the attacker can alter plugin settings or trigger administrative operations exposed by vulnerable endpoints. Availability is not directly impacted.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing CSRF protection on privileged plugin endpoints. Requests processed by the plugin do not enforce a valid WordPress nonce tied to the requesting user and action, allowing forged cross-site requests to succeed.

Attack Vector

An attacker hosts a page containing an auto-submitting form or embedded resource that targets a vulnerable plugin endpoint on the victim's WordPress site. When an authenticated administrator or privileged user visits the page, their browser sends the forged request with valid session cookies, causing the plugin to accept it as legitimate. See the Patchstack advisory for additional technical detail.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-47681

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected changes to accessibility-toolbar plugin configuration or settings in wp_options
WordPress access logs showing POST requests to plugin endpoints with Referer headers pointing to unrelated external domains
Administrative actions performed shortly after users visited third-party sites in the same session

Detection Strategies

Inspect web server logs for cross-origin POST or GET requests to /wp-admin/admin.php, /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, or /wp-admin/admin-post.php targeting plugin actions without an accompanying _wpnonce parameter
Audit wp_options and plugin-specific tables for configuration drift that does not correlate with legitimate admin activity
Correlate WordPress user session activity with browsing telemetry to identify request patterns consistent with CSRF triggers

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable verbose access logging on wp-admin endpoints and forward logs to a centralized analytics platform for retention and query
Alert on administrative plugin actions initiated with off-site Referer or Origin headers
Track plugin version inventory across all WordPress instances and flag any host still running accessibility-toolbar version <= 2.0.9

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-47681

Immediate Actions Required

Update the Web Accessibility with Max Access plugin to a version later than 2.0.9 once available from the vendor
If no patched version is available, deactivate and remove the plugin until a fix is released
Force reauthentication of privileged WordPress users and rotate administrative session cookies

Patch Information

At the time of publication, the NVD entry does not list a fixed version. Refer to the Patchstack advisory for accessibility-toolbar for the current patch status and any vendor-issued update to Web Accessibility with Max Access.

Workarounds

Restrict access to /wp-admin/ via IP allowlists at the reverse proxy or WAF layer
Deploy a WordPress security plugin or WAF rule that enforces SameSite=Strict cookies and validates Origin/Referer on admin requests
Instruct administrators to log out of WordPress before browsing untrusted sites and to use a dedicated browser profile for site management

bash

# Example: disable the vulnerable plugin using WP-CLI until a patched version is available
wp plugin deactivate accessibility-toolbar
wp plugin delete accessibility-toolbar