CVE-2025-12360

Better Find and Replace <= 1.7.7 - Missing Authorization

2025-11-05 19:08
Adrian Lukita

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 1.7.8
Affected Plugin
Better Find and Replace – AI-Powered Suggestions
Affected Version
<= 1.7.7
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-285 · Improper Authorization
CVE
CVE-2025-12360
View all Better Find and Replace – AI-Powered Suggestions vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2025-12360 is a medium-severity Improper Authorization vulnerability in the Better Find and Replace WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.7.7. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The root cause is a missing authorization check on a reachable function. The issue is fixed in version 1.7.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2025, reported by Adrian Lukita.

Vulnerability Overview

The Better Find and Replace – AI-Powered Suggestions plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized API usage due to a missing capability check on the rtafar_ajax() function in all versions up to, and including, 1.7.7. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access, to trigger OpenAI API key usage resulting in quota consumption potentially incurring cost.

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.

CWE-285: Improper Authorization

Better Find and Replace <= 1.7.7 carries this weakness at rtafar_ajax(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authorization means a permission check exists but does not cover the case being exercised, so a caller who is allowed to do one thing is allowed to do a neighbouring thing as well.

A lower-privileged account performs an action reserved for a higher one, which on a multi-author or membership site means an ordinary user reaching administrative behaviour. For Better Find and Replace the fix is 1.7.8: builds <= 1.7.7 are affected, anything from 1.7.8 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.7.8, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: Better Find and Replace 1.7.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-12360https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/757e41dd-d72f-4e87-a087-c5c38bd727e5https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-12360

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C