CVE-2025-28974
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 · uneditedCross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in mail250 Free WP Mail SMTP free-wp-mail-smtp allows Stored XSS.This issue affects Free WP Mail SMTP: from n/a through <= 1.0.
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 confidenceCross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the mail250 Free WP Mail SMTP WordPress plugin allows attackers to trick authenticated administrators into unknowingly submitting malicious requests that inject stored XSS payloads. The lack of proper nonce validation on admin actions enables attackers to execute arbitrary JavaScript in the context of the WordPress admin dashboard when other users view the affected content.
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
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify if mail250 plugin is installedNavigate to WordPress admin > Plugins and look for 'mail250 Free WP Mail SMTP' or search the wp-content/plugins directory for a folder containing 'mail250'Affected if The plugin is present in the WordPress installation
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Check installed plugin versionIn Plugins list within WordPress admin, find the mail250 plugin entry and note the version number displayed, or read the main plugin PHP file header for 'Version' tagAffected if Version cannot be determined or is unknown, treat as potentially affected
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Verify plugin is activeCheck the Plugins page in WordPress admin - the mail250 plugin listing shows 'Activate' or 'Deactivate' link indicating current statusAffected if The plugin is currently activated in the WordPress site
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Inspect admin form submissions for nonce fieldsView page source of any mail250 plugin admin page (e.g., settings page). Search for 'wpnonce' or '_wp_nonce' in form HTML tagsAffected if Forms submitting to mail250 plugin endpoints lack nonce validation fields
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Check for stored XSS in plugin settingsNavigate to mail250 plugin settings pages in admin. View page source and search for unencoded characters in input values or stored content that could contain script tagsAffected if Plugin settings contain unsanitized user input with raw <script> tags or event handlers visible in HTML source
If the mail250 Free WP Mail SMTP plugin is installed and active, CSRF protection is missing from its admin actions, making the site vulnerable to stored XSS injection via tricked administrators.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataImplement WordPress nonces on all form submissions and AJAX endpoints to prevent CSRF attacks, combined with proper input validation and output encoding to prevent stored XSS. Verify all state-changing requests originate from legitimate admin sessions.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,560.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-28974 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-28974 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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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.
- 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