CVE-2025-49877: ProfileGrid WordPress Plugin SSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2025-49877 Overview

CVE-2025-49877 is a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the Metagauss ProfileGrid WordPress plugin (profilegrid-user-profiles-groups-and-communities). The flaw affects all versions up to and including 5.9.5.2. An authenticated attacker with low privileges can coerce the WordPress server into issuing arbitrary HTTP requests to attacker-chosen destinations. This behavior maps to CWE-918: Server-Side Request Forgery. The vulnerability was disclosed through Patchstack and published to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) on June 17, 2025.

Critical Impact
An authenticated attacker can pivot from the WordPress host into internal networks, probe cloud metadata endpoints, and interact with services that trust the server's outbound requests.

Affected Products

Metagauss ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities plugin for WordPress
All plugin versions from initial release through 5.9.5.2
WordPress sites that expose ProfileGrid functionality to authenticated users

Discovery Timeline

2025-06-17 - CVE-2025-49877 published to NVD via Patchstack advisory
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-49877

Vulnerability Analysis

The ProfileGrid plugin accepts a user-supplied URL and fetches it server-side without sufficient validation of the destination. Because the request originates from the WordPress host, it bypasses network boundaries that normally block external clients from reaching internal services.

Exploitation requires network access and low-privilege authentication. Attack complexity is high, which reflects conditions such as valid session context or specific plugin state required to trigger the vulnerable code path. The scope is changed because the affected component causes another component (internal services or cloud metadata APIs) to act on the attacker's behalf.

Successful exploitation yields limited confidentiality and integrity impact. Attackers can read responses from internal endpoints and induce state changes on services that treat the WordPress host as trusted.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing or insufficient validation of a URL parameter processed by the plugin before it is passed to an HTTP request function. The plugin does not enforce an allowlist of hosts, does not block private IP ranges (RFC 1918, loopback, link-local 169.254.0.0/16), and does not restrict URL schemes. This allows an authenticated user to substitute internal or cloud-internal addresses in place of an expected external URL.

Attack Vector

An authenticated user submits a crafted request to the vulnerable ProfileGrid endpoint containing a URL parameter pointing to an internal resource. The server processes the request, issues an outbound HTTP call to the attacker-controlled destination, and returns response data or side effects to the caller. Typical targets include cloud instance metadata services such as http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/, internal admin panels, and unauthenticated services bound to 127.0.0.1.

No verified proof-of-concept code is publicly documented for CVE-2025-49877. See the Patchstack SSRF Vulnerability Report for technical details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-49877

Indicators of Compromise

Outbound HTTP requests from the WordPress host to internal IP ranges such as 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16, or 127.0.0.1
PHP process connections to cloud metadata endpoints such as 169.254.169.254 or metadata.google.internal
Unexpected user-agent strings from the WordPress PHP-FPM or Apache worker reaching internal services
Access log entries showing ProfileGrid AJAX or REST endpoints being called with URL-shaped parameters pointing to internal hosts

Detection Strategies

Inspect web server access logs for requests to ProfileGrid endpoints containing parameters whose values match URL patterns targeting private address ranges
Baseline the WordPress host's normal outbound destinations and alert on new connections to internal services or metadata IPs
Correlate authenticated WordPress sessions with anomalous outbound request bursts originating from the same worker process

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable and centralize WordPress and web server logs into a SIEM for correlation across authentication and outbound activity
Configure egress firewall rules to block WordPress hosts from reaching cloud metadata services and non-required internal networks, then alert on violations
Monitor plugin update state and flag WordPress instances still running ProfileGrid 5.9.5.2 or earlier

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-49877

Immediate Actions Required

Update the ProfileGrid plugin to the version above 5.9.5.2 that contains the patch referenced in the Patchstack advisory
Audit WordPress user accounts and remove or downgrade unnecessary low-privilege accounts that could be abused for authenticated exploitation
Review outbound network logs from WordPress hosts covering the period since the plugin was installed for signs of SSRF probing

Patch Information

The vendor advisory referenced by Patchstack indicates a fixed release above 5.9.5.2. Administrators should apply the latest ProfileGrid update through the WordPress plugin manager or by replacing the plugin files from the official source. Confirm the installed version after upgrade by checking wp-content/plugins/profilegrid-user-profiles-groups-and-communities/.

Workarounds

Deactivate the ProfileGrid plugin until the patched version is deployed if immediate patching is not possible
Restrict WordPress host egress at the network layer, blocking access to 169.254.169.254, loopback, and private ranges the site does not need
Enforce Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) on AWS EC2 instances hosting WordPress to require session tokens for metadata access
Place the WordPress site behind a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with rules that inspect URL-valued parameters for internal IP addresses and non-HTTP schemes

bash

# Example egress restriction using iptables to block metadata and private ranges
# from the WordPress host's PHP process user (illustrative)
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner www-data -d 169.254.169.254 -j REJECT
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner www-data -d 127.0.0.0/8 ! -o lo -j REJECT
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner www-data -d 10.0.0.0/8 -j REJECT
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner www-data -d 172.16.0.0/12 -j REJECT
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner www-data -d 192.168.0.0/16 -j REJECT