CVE-2025-8891

OceanWP <= 4.0.9 - 4.1.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Ocean Extra Plugin Installation

2025-08-12 00:00
Dmitrii Ignatyev

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 4.1.2
Affected Theme
OceanWP
Affected Version
4.0.9 – 4.1.1
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2025-8891
View all OceanWP vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2025-8891 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the OceanWP WordPress theme, affecting versions 4.0.9 – 4.1.1. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 4.1.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2025, reported by Dmitrii Ignatyev.

Vulnerability Overview

The OceanWP theme for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions 4.0.9 to 4.1.1. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the oceanwp_notice_button_click() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to install the Ocean Extra plugin via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.

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 privileges on the target site.

CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

OceanWP 4.0.9 – 4.1.1 carries this weakness at oceanwp_notice_button_click(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.

An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. For OceanWP the fix is 4.1.2: builds 4.0.9 – 4.1.1 are affected, anything from 4.1.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 4.1.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to OceanWP: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: OceanWP 4.1.2 closes this, and updating the theme is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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