CVE-2025-13642

ProfilePress <= 4.16.7 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Shortcode Execution

2025-12-08 00:00
Nguyen Ngoc Quang Bach (maysbachs)

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 4.16.8
Affected Plugin
Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress
Affected Version
<= 4.16.7
CVSS
5.4Medium
Weakness type
CWE-94 · Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
CVE
CVE-2025-13642
View all Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2025-13642 is a medium-severity Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in the Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.16.7. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 4.16.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2025, reported by Nguyen Ngoc Quang Bach (maysbachs).

Vulnerability Overview

The Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary shortcode execution in all versions up to, and including, 4.16.7 due to insufficient input sanitization on the `type` parameter in the form preview functionality. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to execute arbitrary shortcodes via the `pp_preview_form` endpoint.

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-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

Reaching this weakness in Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content <= 4.16.7 takes an account at Subscriber level or above. Code injection means input from a request reaches a language construct that evaluates code, so the attacker's text is executed rather than treated as data.

The injected code runs with the web server's privileges, giving the attacker the same access to the database and filesystem as WordPress itself. For Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content the fix is 4.16.8: builds <= 4.16.7 are affected, anything from 4.16.8 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 4.16.8, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Subscriber 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. Classes like this one can leave something behind, so the staged malware scanner is the second half: it looks for dropped files and modified code rather than for the request that created them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content 4.16.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Scanner
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-13642https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/4736d139-814e-4eeb-91e8-5ee41fc35a8fhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-13642

Related records

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