Starfish Review Generation & Marketing <= 3.1.19 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Options Update
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 3.1.20
- Affected Plugin
- Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress
- Affected Version
<= 3.1.19- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-862 · Missing Authorization
- CVE
CVE-2025-39533
At a glance
CVE-2025-39533 is a high-severity Missing Authorization vulnerability in the Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.1.19. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 3.1.20; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2025, reported by LVT-tholv2k.
Vulnerability Overview
The Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data that can lead to privilege escalation due to a missing capability check on the 'starfish-execute-restore-default-options' AJAX action in all versions up to, and including, 3.1.19. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-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-862: Missing Authorization
Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress <= 3.1.19 carries this weakness at starfish-execute-restore-default-options, and reaching it takes an account at Subscriber level or above. A missing authorization check means a function is reachable by anyone who can reach the endpoint, because the code never asks whether the caller is allowed to perform the action.
Any user who can reach the endpoint gets to run an action reserved for higher-privileged roles, from reading protected data to changing settings or content. For Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress the fix is 3.1.20: builds <= 3.1.19 are affected, anything from 3.1.20 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 3.1.20, 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: Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress 3.1.20 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in Starfish Review Generation & Marketing for WordPress
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