CVE-2025-58678: PickPlugins Accordion Auth Bypass Flaw

CVE-2025-58678 Overview

CVE-2025-58678 is a missing authorization vulnerability in the PickPlugins Accordion plugin for WordPress. The flaw stems from incorrectly configured access control security levels, allowing authenticated users with low privileges to access functionality that should be restricted. The vulnerability affects Accordion versions up to and including 2.3.15. The issue is tracked under CWE-862: Missing Authorization and was published by Patchstack.

Critical Impact

Authenticated attackers with low privileges can exploit broken access control in the Accordion plugin to access restricted plugin functionality, resulting in confidentiality impact on affected WordPress sites.

Affected Products

• PickPlugins Accordion plugin for WordPress
• Versions from n/a through 2.3.15
• WordPress sites with the vulnerable plugin installed and activated

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-09-22 - CVE-2025-58678 published to NVD
• 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-58678

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability resides in the PickPlugins Accordion WordPress plugin, which fails to properly enforce authorization checks on one or more plugin actions. An authenticated attacker holding a low-privilege role, such as Subscriber, can invoke functionality intended for higher-privileged users. The flaw is remotely exploitable over the network without user interaction. Successful exploitation results in unauthorized disclosure of information handled by the plugin, though it does not directly modify data or disrupt availability.

Missing authorization vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins typically occur when developers register AJAX endpoints or REST routes without a corresponding current_user_can() capability check or nonce verification. In this case, the plugin exposes actions guarded only by authentication rather than by role or capability. See the Patchstack Vulnerability Report for detailed technical analysis.

Root Cause

The root cause is broken access control [CWE-862] within the Accordion plugin codebase. Plugin handlers do not verify that the calling user possesses the required WordPress capability before executing privileged operations. Authentication alone is treated as sufficient, which contradicts the WordPress security model where capability checks must accompany every sensitive action.

Attack Vector

An attacker must first authenticate to the target WordPress site with any valid account, including a self-registered Subscriber if open registration is enabled. The attacker then issues crafted HTTP requests to the vulnerable plugin endpoints. Because the endpoints lack capability verification, the requests are processed as if the attacker held elevated permissions. No social engineering or user interaction is required.

No verified public proof-of-concept code is available. Refer to the Patchstack advisory for additional context.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-58678

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected admin-ajax.php or REST API requests to Accordion plugin actions originating from low-privileged user sessions.
• WordPress audit log entries showing Subscriber or Contributor accounts triggering plugin operations normally reserved for Editors or Administrators.
• Anomalous outbound data patterns from the WordPress host correlating with Accordion plugin endpoints.

Detection Strategies

• Review WordPress access logs for HTTP POST requests to plugin endpoints associated with accordions that carry authenticated session cookies from non-privileged users.
• Deploy a WordPress activity monitoring plugin to flag privileged actions executed by low-privilege roles.
• Correlate web server logs with WordPress user role assignments to surface access control anomalies.

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable verbose logging on the WordPress installation and forward logs to a centralized SIEM for role-based query analysis.
• Monitor for spikes in authenticated traffic to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with action parameters referencing the Accordion plugin.
• Alert on new user registrations followed shortly by plugin-specific AJAX or REST requests, which may indicate opportunistic exploitation.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-58678

Immediate Actions Required

• Identify all WordPress instances running the PickPlugins Accordion plugin at version 2.3.15 or earlier.
• Disable the plugin until a patched version is installed if patching cannot be completed immediately.
• Restrict new user registration on public WordPress sites to reduce the pool of potential authenticated attackers.
• Audit existing low-privileged accounts for suspicious activity against plugin endpoints.

Patch Information

At the time of publication, the vendor advisory referenced by Patchstack identifies all versions up to and including 2.3.15 as vulnerable. Administrators should upgrade to the latest available release from the WordPress plugin repository once a fixed version is published, and validate that plugin handlers perform proper capability checks.

Workarounds

• Temporarily deactivate the Accordion plugin until an upstream fix is available and verified.
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule to block requests to Accordion-specific AJAX or REST actions from non-administrative sessions.
• Enforce least-privilege role assignments and remove unused low-privileged accounts to limit the attack surface.
• Require multi-factor authentication for all WordPress user accounts to raise the cost of credential abuse.

# Example: disable the vulnerable plugin from the command line using WP-CLI
wp plugin deactivate accordions
wp plugin status accordions