CVE-2025-10493

Chained Quiz <= 1.3.5 - Unauthenticated Insecure Direct Object Reference via Cookie

2025-09-17 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 1.3.6
Affected Plugin: Chained Quiz
Affected Version: <= 1.3.5
CVSS: 5.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-639 · Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
CVE: CVE-2025-10493

At a glance

CVE-2025-10493 is a medium-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in the Chained Quiz WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.3.5. It carries a CVSS score of 5.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.3.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2025, reported by 0xsabre.

Vulnerability Overview

The Chained Quiz plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference in version 1.3.4 and below via the quiz submission and completion mechanisms due to missing validation on a user controlled key. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to hijack and modify other users' quiz attempts by manipulating the chained_completion_id cookie value, allowing them to alter quiz answers, scores, and results of any user. The vulnerability was partially patched in versions 1.3.4 and 1.3.5.

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, and no interaction from a victim user.

CWE-639: Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key

Reaching this weakness in Chained Quiz <= 1.3.5 takes no account at all. Authorization bypass through a user-controlled key, often called insecure direct object reference, means the application looks up a record by an identifier from the request without checking that the caller owns it.

Changing a number in the request is enough to read or modify other users' records, which on commerce and membership sites means customer data. For Chained Quiz the fix is 1.3.6: builds <= 1.3.5 are affected, anything from 1.3.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.3.6, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. None of that substitutes for the fix: Chained Quiz 1.3.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-10493 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/1d8f6965-1fe3-4f24-bd6b-9026e91bc5db https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-10493

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Chained Quiz

CVSS Vector

5.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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