CVE-2025-2270

Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock <= 2.8.9.1 - Unauthenticated Limited Local File Inclusion

2025-04-03 16:22

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.9.0
Affected Plugin: Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock
Affected Version: <= 2.8.9.1
CVSS: 8.1High
Weakness type: CWE-22 · Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
CVE: CVE-2025-2270

View all Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2025-2270 is a high-severity Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in the Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.8.9.1. It carries a CVSS score of 8.1 (reachable over the network; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.9.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2025, reported by mikemyers.

Vulnerability Overview

The Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 2.8.9.1 via the createCdObj function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to include and execute files with the specific filenames on the server, allowing the execution of any PHP code in those files. This can be used to bypass access controls, obtain sensitive data, or achieve code execution in some cases.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user. 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')

Reaching this weakness in Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance <= 2.8.9.1 takes no account at all. 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 Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance the fix is 2.9.0: builds <= 2.8.9.1 are affected, anything from 2.9.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.9.0, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance 2.9.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-2270 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/c2260d6b-1a41-4757-a063-8b8857ef416a https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-2270

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock

CVSS Vector

8.1

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityHigh
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityHigh

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