Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer <= 1.5.16 - Authenticated (Shop Manager+) Arbitrary Options Update
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.5.17
- Affected Plugin
- Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer
- Affected Version
<= 1.5.16- CVSS
- 7.2High
- Weakness type
- CWE-20 · Improper Input Validation
- CVE
CVE-2025-54697
At a glance
CVE-2025-54697 is a high-severity Improper Input Validation vulnerability in the Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.5.16. It carries a CVSS score of 7.2 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Shop Manager level or above. The issue is fixed in version 1.5.17; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2025, reported by Denver Jackson.
Vulnerability Overview
The Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data that can lead to privilege escalation due to insufficient input validation on the import_woomail() function in all versions up to, and including, 1.5.16. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Shop Manager-level access and above, to update arbitrary options on the WordPress site. This can be leveraged to update the default role for registration to administrator and enable user registration for attackers to gain administrative user access to a vulnerable site.
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 interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-20: Improper Input Validation
Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer <= 1.5.16 carries this weakness at import_woomail(), and reaching it takes an account at Shop Manager level or above. Improper input validation means the application accepts input without confirming it has the form, type or range the code downstream assumes.
The concrete impact depends on where the unvalidated value lands, which is why records in this class range from cosmetic bugs to full compromise. For Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer the fix is 1.5.17: builds <= 1.5.16 are affected, anything from 1.5.17 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.5.17, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Shop Manager access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer 1.5.17 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer
- 9.8CVE-2026-28005: Kadence WooCommerce Email… Privilege Escalation
CVE-2026-28005 - 7.2CVE-2025-13387: Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer Stored XSS
CVE-2025-13387 - 7.2CVE-2025-39557: Kadence WooCommerce Email… Arbitrary File Upload
CVE-2025-39557 - 7.2CVE-2022-3335: Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer PHP Object Injection
CVE-2022-3335 - 4.3CVE-2023-47186: Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer <= 1.5.11 CSRF
CVE-2023-47186
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