CVE-2025-8214: The Pack Elementor Addon XSS Vulnerability

CVE-2025-8214 Overview

CVE-2025-8214 is a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability [CWE-79] in The Pack Elementor addon plugin for WordPress. The flaw affects all versions up to and including 2.1.5. The vulnerability resides in the plugin's Typing Letter widget, which fails to properly sanitize input and escape output on user-supplied attributes. Authenticated attackers with contributor-level access or higher can inject arbitrary JavaScript into pages. The injected scripts execute in the browser of any visitor who loads the affected page.

Critical Impact
Contributor-level users can persist malicious JavaScript in WordPress pages, enabling session theft, credential harvesting, or forced administrative actions when higher-privileged users view the content.

Affected Products

The Pack Elementor addon plugin for WordPress — all versions ≤ 2.1.5
WordPress sites using the Typing Letter widget from this plugin
Any site allowing contributor-level or higher accounts to author content with the vulnerable widget

Discovery Timeline

2025-09-30 - CVE-2025-8214 published to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-8214

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is a stored XSS flaw classified under [CWE-79]. The Typing Letter widget in The Pack Elementor addon accepts user-controlled attributes when a page is edited in Elementor. The plugin renders these attributes into the page output without applying sufficient sanitization or escaping. As a result, attacker-controlled markup and JavaScript persist in the database and are served to every visitor who loads the page.

Because the payload is stored and executed in the context of the affected WordPress site's origin, it can access cookies, session tokens, and the DOM of authenticated users. If an administrator views the injected page, the payload runs with that administrator's browser privileges. This allows attackers to escalate impact from a low-privilege contributor account to full site compromise through actions like creating new administrator users or modifying plugin settings.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing input sanitization on write and missing output escaping on render for widget attributes. Standard WordPress helpers such as sanitize_text_field(), wp_kses_post(), and esc_attr() or esc_html() were not applied to the Typing Letter widget's user-supplied fields. Any string entered as an attribute is trusted and echoed into the HTML response.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires an authenticated session with contributor-level access or above. The attacker edits a post or page using Elementor, inserts the Typing Letter widget, and supplies malicious content in one of the widget's attribute fields. When the post is published or previewed, the payload executes in the browser of any user who loads the page. No user interaction beyond visiting the page is required.

See the Wordfence Vulnerability Report and the WordPress Plugin Changeset for technical references. No public proof-of-concept exploit code is currently available.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-8214

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected <script> tags, onerror, onload, or javascript: URIs embedded in Elementor Typing Letter widget attributes stored in wp_postmeta
Outbound HTTP requests from visitor browsers to unfamiliar domains after loading pages that contain the Typing Letter widget
Creation of new administrator accounts or plugin installations shortly after an administrator previewed a contributor-authored page

Detection Strategies

Query the WordPress database for Elementor data containing script-related keywords: SELECT * FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_elementor_data' AND meta_value LIKE '%typing-letter%' AND meta_value REGEXP '(<script|onerror=|onload=|javascript:)';
Review recent post revisions authored by contributor and author roles for unusual HTML in widget fields
Monitor web server logs and CSP violation reports for inline script execution from pages using the affected widget

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable and monitor Content Security Policy (CSP) reporting to surface unauthorized inline scripts
Audit user role assignments to confirm which accounts hold contributor privileges or above
Alert on WordPress administrative events including user creation, role changes, and plugin activation immediately following content publication by lower-privileged users

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-8214

Immediate Actions Required

Update The Pack Elementor addon plugin to a version later than 2.1.5 once available from the vendor
Audit all pages using the Typing Letter widget for stored payloads and remove any malicious content
Restrict contributor and author role assignments to trusted users only until the patch is applied

Patch Information

Refer to the The Pack Addon Plugin Info page for the latest release information and the WordPress Plugin Changeset for the corresponding source code changes. Administrators should apply the fixed version as soon as it is published and verify that widget attributes are properly escaped in the resulting HTML.

Workarounds

Deactivate The Pack Elementor addon plugin until an updated version is installed
Remove the Typing Letter widget from all published pages and templates
Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule to block requests containing script tags or event handler attributes targeting Elementor endpoints
Enforce a strict Content Security Policy that disallows inline scripts and untrusted script sources

bash

# Example strict CSP header to reduce XSS impact
Header set Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; frame-ancestors 'self'"