Missing AuthorizationWeakness · CWE-862

CVE-2025-60086

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-12-18
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
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 Matt WP Voting Contest wp-voting-contest allows Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels.This issue affects WP Voting Contest: from n/a through <= 5.8.

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 vulnerability in the WP Voting Contest WordPress plugin allows unauthenticated or unauthorized users to exploit incorrectly configured access control security levels, potentially allowing them to manipulate votes or access administrative functions they should not have permission to access.

MitigationImplement proper authorization checks and role-based access controls on all sensitive functions within the plugin, ensuring that user permissions are validated before allowing vote manipulation or administrative actions.

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
High
Availability
None

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

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. Confirm WP Voting Contest plugin is installed
    Navigate to WordPress admin dashboard > Plugins section and locate the WP Voting Contest plugin, or check the wp-content/plugins directory for the plugin folder. Note the installed version number.
    Affected if The plugin is installed and running without the latest security patch.
  2. Identify voting-related endpoints
    Review the plugin's PHP files (typically in the plugin root) for action hooks handling vote submissions, such as wp_ajax_ or wp_ajax_nopriv_ hooks related to voting. Check for functions that process vote data without capability checks.
    Affected if The plugin exposes vote submission handlers accessible via wp_ajax_nopriv_ hooks without proper authorization validation.
  3. Inspect admin function access controls
    Search plugin source code for admin-action functions (typically prefixed with admin_ or located in includes/admin folders). Verify that each function includes current_user_can() or similar capability checks before executing privileged operations.
    Affected if Administrative functions lack proper current_user_can() capability checks and are accessible to lower-privileged users or unauthenticated requests.
  4. Check role configuration settings
    Look for plugin options pages (usually under Settings menu) where role-based access controls for voting may be configured. Inspect stored options in wp_options table for any misconfigured permission settings.
    Affected if Role-based access settings are configured to grant excessive permissions to user roles that should not have voting manipulation access.

A user is affected if the WP Voting Contest plugin is installed with vulnerable authorization controls, specifically if vote submission endpoints are accessible without authentication or admin functions lack capability checks.

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

Implement proper authorization checks and role-based access controls on all sensitive functions within the plugin, ensuring that user permissions are validated before allowing vote manipulation or administrative actions.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation5.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
13.0 hours of engineering $2,310
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Scan for this in your stack

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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-2025-60086 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