CVE-2025-7059: WordPress Simple Featured Image XSS Flaw

CVE-2025-7059 Overview

CVE-2025-7059 is a Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Simple Featured Image plugin for WordPress. The flaw affects all versions up to and including 1.3.1 and resides in the handling of the slideshow parameter. The plugin fails to properly sanitize input and escape output, allowing authenticated users with Contributor-level access or higher to inject arbitrary JavaScript. Injected payloads execute in the browser of any visitor who views the affected page. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-79.

Critical Impact

Authenticated Contributor-level attackers can inject persistent JavaScript into WordPress pages, enabling session theft, administrative action hijacking, and redirection to attacker-controlled infrastructure.

Affected Products

• Simple Featured Image plugin for WordPress, all versions through 1.3.1
• WordPress sites that allow Contributor-level or higher user registration
• Pages rendering the plugin's slider.tpl.php template with the slideshow parameter

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-07-09 - CVE-2025-7059 published to NVD
• 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-7059

Vulnerability Analysis

The Simple Featured Image plugin exposes a stored XSS sink through the slideshow parameter processed by the plugin's slider template. User-supplied input flows into the rendered HTML without passing through WordPress sanitization helpers such as sanitize_text_field() or output escapers like esc_attr() and esc_html(). Because the payload persists in post or page content, every subsequent view of the page triggers execution in the visitor's browser session.

Contributor-level access is the minimum privilege required, which lowers the exploitation barrier on sites that accept guest contributors or multi-author workflows. When an administrator previews or publishes an affected page, the injected script executes with the administrator's authenticated session context.

Root Cause

The root cause is insufficient input sanitization combined with missing output escaping in the plugin's slider.tpl.php template. The slideshow parameter is written into the HTML output stream without encoding of characters such as <, >, ", and '. The plugin template referenced at line 24 of templates/slider.tpl.php demonstrates this unsafe rendering pattern.

Attack Vector

An authenticated Contributor crafts a post or custom field containing a malicious payload bound to the slideshow parameter. After storage, any user rendering the containing page executes the embedded script. Attackers typically use this primitive to steal authentication cookies, perform CSRF against administrative endpoints to create new admin accounts, or inject SEO spam and malicious redirects.

The vulnerability requires no user interaction beyond page navigation and executes under the origin of the WordPress site, giving the payload full access to the Document Object Model and same-origin storage.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-7059

Indicators of Compromise

• Post or page content containing <script>, onerror=, onload=, or javascript: strings within slider configuration data
• Unexpected outbound requests from WordPress frontend sessions to unknown domains
• Newly created administrator accounts or modified user roles following Contributor activity
• Modifications to plugin template files under wp-content/plugins/simple-featured-image/templates/

Detection Strategies

• Query the WordPress wp_posts and wp_postmeta tables for records associated with the Simple Featured Image plugin containing HTML event handlers or script tags
• Review web server access logs for POST requests to /wp-admin/post.php from Contributor-role accounts followed by suspicious frontend GET activity
• Deploy a Content Security Policy (CSP) in report-only mode to surface inline script execution on pages served by the plugin

Monitoring Recommendations

• Monitor WordPress audit logs for role assignments and new user registrations from unexpected IP ranges
• Alert on edits to posts containing slider configurations by non-administrator roles
• Track browser-side JavaScript errors and CSP violation reports originating from pages rendered by the plugin

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-7059

Immediate Actions Required

• Audit all Contributor, Author, and Editor accounts and remove unused or untrusted users
• Disable the Simple Featured Image plugin until a patched release is applied
• Inspect existing posts and pages for malicious payloads embedded in slideshow parameters and remove them
• Rotate administrator credentials and invalidate active sessions if XSS execution is suspected

Patch Information

At the time of NVD publication, versions through 1.3.1 are affected. Monitor the WordPress plugin page and the Wordfence advisory for a fixed version. Apply the vendor update immediately once released and verify the template file slider.tpl.php now escapes the slideshow parameter.

Workarounds

• Restrict content creation to Editor or Administrator roles while a patch is unavailable
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule to block requests containing script tags or event handlers in post content submitted by Contributor accounts
• Enforce a strict Content Security Policy that disallows inline scripts on frontend pages
• Replace the plugin with an alternative that follows WordPress sanitization and escaping standards

# Disable the plugin via WP-CLI pending a vendor patch
wp plugin deactivate simple-featured-image

# Search post content for suspicious payloads
wp db query "SELECT ID, post_title FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%<script%' OR post_content LIKE '%onerror=%';"