dbcve.org
Missing AuthorizationWeakness · CWE-862

CVE-2023-25454

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-12-09
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
74/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Missing Authorization vulnerability in Nate Reist Protected Posts Logout Button allows Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels.This issue affects Protected Posts Logout Button: from n/a through 1.4.5.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

Missing authorization check in the Protected Posts Logout Button WordPress plugin allows authenticated users with low privileges (or potentially unauthenticated users depending on configuration) to bypass access controls and perform actions they should not be permitted to execute. The vulnerability stems from incorrectly configured access control security levels in the plugin.

MitigationUpdate to the latest version of the Protected Posts Logout Button plugin (1.4.6 or later). If no patched version is available, disable the plugin until a fix is released and review server-level access controls as a temporary measure.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
Low

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify the Protected Posts Logout Button plugin is installed
    Navigate to WordPress admin dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins, or inspect the /wp-content/plugins/ directory for a folder named 'protected-posts-logout-button' or similar
    Affected if the plugin folder exists in the WordPress plugins directory
  2. Determine the installed plugin version
    In WordPress admin > Plugins > Installed Plugins, find the Protected Posts Logout Button plugin and note the version number displayed below the plugin name; alternatively, read the main plugin PHP file header for the 'Version' tag
    Affected if the installed version is lower than 1.4.6 or the version cannot be determined (unknown versions should be treated as affected)
  3. Confirm the plugin is active
    In WordPress admin > Plugins > Installed Plugins, check if the Protected Posts Logout Button plugin has an 'Active' status or check the wp_options table for the active_plugins option
    Affected if the plugin is currently active and the version is below 1.4.6
  4. Identify low-privilege user accounts
    In WordPress admin > Users, review all user accounts and note their assigned roles; check for roles such as Subscriber, Contributor, or any custom role with limited capabilities
    Affected if any user accounts exist with roles below Administrator (especially Subscriber, Contributor, or Editor roles)
  5. Check for publicly accessible admin-ajax or REST endpoints
    Examine HTTP responses when accessing /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php or /wp-json/ without authentication, and check if any plugin-specific actions are exposed; use a web proxy or curl to probe these endpoints for plugin-related AJAX actions
    Affected if plugin-related AJAX actions or REST endpoints respond without requiring proper authentication or elevated privileges

A user is affected if the Protected Posts Logout Button plugin is installed, active, running below version 1.4.6, and low-privilege user accounts exist in the WordPress installation, as the missing authorization check allows these users to bypass access controls.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Update to the latest version of the Protected Posts Logout Button plugin (1.4.6 or later). If no patched version is available, disable the plugin until a fix is released and review server-level access controls as a temporary measure.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-25454 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data