CVE-2025-58251 Overview
CVE-2025-58251 is a missing authorization vulnerability in the POSIMYTH Sticky Header Effects for Elementor WordPress plugin. The flaw affects all versions up to and including 2.1.2. Incorrectly configured access control allows authenticated users with low privileges to invoke plugin functionality that should be restricted to higher-privileged roles. The weakness is classified under CWE-862: Missing Authorization.
Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers with minimal privileges can bypass access controls in the plugin and perform actions that modify plugin data, resulting in limited integrity impact on affected WordPress sites.
Affected Products
- POSIMYTH Sticky Header Effects for Elementor plugin (sticky-header-effects-for-elementor)
- All versions from initial release through 2.1.2
- WordPress sites running the vulnerable plugin alongside Elementor
Discovery Timeline
- 2025-09-22 - CVE-2025-58251 published to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
- 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database
Technical Details for CVE-2025-58251
Vulnerability Analysis
The Sticky Header Effects for Elementor plugin exposes one or more action handlers that do not verify the caller's role or capability before executing sensitive operations. Any authenticated user, including low-privileged accounts such as Subscriber, can send requests to these handlers and trigger functionality intended for administrators or editors.
Because the plugin fails to enforce a capability check, the trust boundary between low-privileged and high-privileged users collapses at the affected endpoints. The Patchstack advisory documents the issue as broken access control with limited integrity impact and no direct confidentiality or availability effect.
Root Cause
The root cause is a missing authorization check in the plugin's request handlers. Standard WordPress protections such as current_user_can() capability verification are absent or insufficient before privileged actions execute. Nonce validation, if present, does not substitute for a capability check because valid nonces are available to any logged-in session.
Attack Vector
Exploitation requires network access to the WordPress site and an authenticated account with low privileges. The attacker sends a crafted HTTP request to the plugin's vulnerable endpoint, typically via admin-ajax.php or a REST route. No user interaction is required beyond the attacker's own authenticated session. See the Patchstack advisory for additional technical context.
No public proof-of-concept exploit is currently available, and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
Detection Methods for CVE-2025-58251
Indicators of Compromise
- Unexpected modifications to plugin settings or Elementor sticky header configurations performed by non-administrator accounts.
- HTTP POST requests from low-privileged authenticated sessions to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with plugin-specific action parameters tied to sticky-header-effects-for-elementor.
- New or altered site content referencing sticky header effect configurations without a corresponding audit-log entry from an administrator.
Detection Strategies
- Inventory WordPress installations to identify sites running sticky-header-effects-for-elementor at version 2.1.2 or earlier.
- Enable and review WordPress activity logging plugins to correlate low-privileged user sessions with configuration-changing actions.
- Inspect web server access logs for repeated AJAX or REST calls to plugin endpoints originating from Subscriber-level accounts.
Monitoring Recommendations
- Alert on privilege-inconsistent actions where a Subscriber or Contributor account triggers plugin administrative endpoints.
- Forward WordPress and web server logs to a centralized SIEM or data lake for behavioral analysis and long-term retention.
- Track user account creation patterns, as broken access control flaws are typically abused after mass registration or credential stuffing.
How to Mitigate CVE-2025-58251
Immediate Actions Required
- Update Sticky Header Effects for Elementor to a version later than 2.1.2 once the vendor releases a patched build.
- Audit existing WordPress user accounts and remove or downgrade unused low-privileged accounts that could be leveraged for exploitation.
- Restrict public user registration on sites that do not require it, since exploitation depends on an authenticated session.
Patch Information
As of the last NVD update on 2026-06-17, the Patchstack advisory is the authoritative reference. Administrators should monitor the plugin's WordPress.org listing and the vendor's release notes for a fixed version and apply it as soon as it is available.
Workarounds
- Deactivate and remove the sticky-header-effects-for-elementor plugin until a patched version is installed.
- Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule to block requests to the plugin's vulnerable AJAX or REST endpoints from non-administrator sessions.
- Use a WordPress role-management plugin to explicitly remove capabilities from Subscriber and Contributor roles that could interact with the affected handlers.
- Enforce strong authentication and multi-factor authentication for all WordPress accounts to reduce the pool of usable low-privileged sessions.
Disclaimer: This content was generated using AI. While we strive for accuracy, please verify critical information with official sources.
