Career Section <= 1.6 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Arbitrary File Deletion
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.7
- Affected Plugin
- Career Section
- Affected Version
<= 1.6- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-22 · Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
- CVE
CVE-2025-14868
At a glance
CVE-2025-14868 is a high-severity Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in the Career Section WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.6. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.7; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2026, reported by Ivan Cese.
Vulnerability Overview
The Career Section plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery leading to Path Traversal and Arbitrary File Deletion in all versions up to, and including, 1.6. This is due to missing nonce validation and insufficient file path validation on the delete action in the 'appform_options_page_html' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to delete arbitrary files on the server via a forged request, granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
Career Section <= 1.6 carries this weakness at appform_options_page_html, and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Path traversal happens when user-controlled text is used to build a filesystem path without being constrained to an intended directory, so sequences like ../ walk the resolved path somewhere else.
Depending on the operation, it means reading files outside the intended folder — wp-config.php being the usual target — or writing to and deleting paths the web server can touch. For Career Section the fix is 1.7: builds <= 1.6 are affected, anything from 1.7 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.7, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Career Section: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Career Section 1.7 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Career Section
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