CVE-2025-53568 Overview
CVE-2025-53568 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability affecting the Tony Zeoli Radio Station plugin for WordPress. The flaw impacts all versions up to and including 2.5.12. An attacker can craft a malicious web page or link that, when visited by an authenticated user, triggers unintended state-changing actions inside the WordPress site. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery.
Critical Impact
Successful exploitation allows an attacker to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of an authenticated Radio Station plugin user, resulting in limited integrity impact on the affected WordPress site.
Affected Products
- Tony Zeoli Radio Station WordPress plugin versions through 2.5.12
- WordPress sites running the vulnerable plugin
- Any WordPress installation where authenticated users can be targeted via social engineering
Discovery Timeline
- 2025-07-04 - CVE-2025-53568 published to NVD
- 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database
Technical Details for CVE-2025-53568
Vulnerability Analysis
The Radio Station plugin fails to validate the origin of state-changing HTTP requests. WordPress plugins are expected to protect sensitive endpoints using nonce tokens verified through functions such as wp_verify_nonce() or check_admin_referer(). When these controls are missing or incorrectly implemented, an attacker can forge requests that the browser sends alongside a victim's authenticated session cookies.
Exploitation requires user interaction. An authenticated user with access to the plugin's functionality must visit an attacker-controlled page or click a crafted link. The browser then automatically attaches the WordPress session cookie to the forged request, causing the plugin to process it as legitimate.
The scope of impact is limited to integrity. Confidentiality and availability are not directly affected, but attacker-triggered configuration changes to plugin settings can degrade the site's operational state.
Root Cause
The root cause is missing or insufficient CSRF protection on one or more request handlers in the Radio Station plugin. The plugin does not adequately verify that state-changing requests originate from a trusted user-initiated action within the WordPress admin interface.
Attack Vector
The attack vector is network-based and requires user interaction. An attacker hosts a malicious page containing an auto-submitting form or hidden image tag targeting a vulnerable Radio Station plugin endpoint. When an authenticated WordPress user visits the page, the browser issues the forged request under the user's session context. No credentials are required from the attacker directly.
Refer to the Patchstack CSRF Vulnerability Report for advisory details. No verified public exploit code is available.
Detection Methods for CVE-2025-53568
Indicators of Compromise
- Unexpected changes to Radio Station plugin settings, schedules, or configuration made outside of normal administrative activity.
- WordPress access logs showing POST requests to Radio Station plugin endpoints with external Referer headers or missing referrers.
- Authenticated user sessions performing plugin actions immediately after visiting unrelated external sites.
Detection Strategies
- Review WordPress audit logs for state-changing actions on Radio Station plugin endpoints that lack a corresponding admin UI interaction.
- Correlate browser navigation events with subsequent plugin configuration changes to identify off-origin request patterns.
- Deploy a web application firewall rule to flag POST requests to plugin endpoints missing valid nonce parameters.
Monitoring Recommendations
- Monitor the WordPress wp-admin and admin-ajax.php endpoints for requests originating from cross-site referrers.
- Alert on modifications to Radio Station plugin database options in the wp_options table.
- Track privileged user browsing telemetry for visits to untrusted external domains during active admin sessions.
How to Mitigate CVE-2025-53568
Immediate Actions Required
- Update the Radio Station plugin to a version later than 2.5.12 once the vendor releases a patched release.
- Restrict administrative access to trusted users and require them to log out of WordPress when browsing external sites.
- Deploy a web application firewall with CSRF protection rules for WordPress admin endpoints.
Patch Information
Consult the Patchstack CSRF Vulnerability Report for the latest fix status. Apply the vendor-supplied update through the WordPress plugin manager as soon as it becomes available.
Workarounds
- Disable or remove the Radio Station plugin until a patched version is installed if the functionality is not business-critical.
- Enforce SameSite=Strict or SameSite=Lax cookies at the web server level to reduce cross-origin session cookie transmission.
- Require administrators to use a dedicated browser profile for WordPress management to isolate authenticated sessions from general browsing.
# Configuration example: enforce SameSite cookie attribute in Apache
Header edit Set-Cookie ^(.*)$ $1;\ SameSite=Strict
Disclaimer: This content was generated using AI. While we strive for accuracy, please verify critical information with official sources.
