CVE-2025-11171 – The Chartify WordPress plugin has a critical au... (How to Fix)

📋 TL;DR

The Chartify WordPress plugin has a critical authentication bypass vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to execute administrative functions via AJAX endpoints. This affects all WordPress sites running Chartify plugin versions up to 3.5.9. Attackers can perform administrative actions without proper authentication or authorization checks.

💻 Affected Systems

Products:

Chartify - WordPress Chart Plugin

Versions: All versions up to and including 3.5.9

Operating Systems: Any OS running WordPress

Default Config Vulnerable: ⚠️ Yes

Notes: Affects all WordPress installations with vulnerable Chartify plugin versions installed and activated

⚠️ Manual Verification Required

This CVE does not have specific version information in our database, so automatic vulnerability detection cannot determine if your system is affected.

Why? The CVE database entry doesn't specify which versions are vulnerable (no version ranges provided by the vendor/NVD).

🔒 Custom verification scripts are available for registered users. Sign up free to download automated test scripts.

Recommended Actions:

Review the CVE details at NVD
Check vendor security advisories for your specific version
Test if the vulnerability is exploitable in your environment
Consider updating to the latest version as a precaution

⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact

🔴

Worst Case

Complete site compromise including data manipulation, plugin/theme installation, user creation, or site defacement via administrative functions

🟠

Likely Case

Unauthorized data access or modification, chart data manipulation, or limited administrative actions depending on available methods

🟢

If Mitigated

No impact if proper authentication controls are implemented or plugin is updated

🌐 Internet-Facing: HIGH - WordPress admin-ajax.php endpoints are typically internet-facing and accessible

🏢 Internal Only: MEDIUM - Internal attackers could exploit this if they have network access to the WordPress site

🎯 Exploit Status

Public PoC: ✅ No

Weaponized: UNKNOWN

Unauthenticated Exploit: ⚠️ Yes

Complexity: MEDIUM

Exploitation requires identifying callable method names but no authentication is needed

🛠️ Fix & Mitigation

✅ Official Fix

Patch Version: 3.6.0 and later

Vendor Advisory: https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=3372188%40chart-builder%2Ftags%2F3.6.0&new=3372188%40chart-builder%2Ftags%2F3.6.0

Restart Required: No

Instructions:

1. Log into WordPress admin panel
2. Navigate to Plugins → Installed Plugins
3. Find Chartify plugin
4. Click 'Update Now' if update is available
5. Alternatively, download version 3.6.0+ from WordPress repository and manually update

🔧 Temporary Workarounds

Disable vulnerable AJAX endpoints

WordPress

Add authentication checks to block unauthenticated AJAX requests to the vulnerable endpoints

Add to theme's functions.php or custom plugin:
add_filter('wp_ajax_nopriv_chart_builder_*', '__return_false');

Temporarily disable plugin

WordPress

Deactivate Chartify plugin until patched

wp plugin deactivate chart-builder

🧯 If You Can't Patch

Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to block suspicious AJAX requests to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with chart-builder parameters
Restrict access to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php endpoint using IP whitelisting or authentication at web server level

🔍 How to Verify

Check if Vulnerable:

Check WordPress admin → Plugins → Installed Plugins for Chartify version. If version is 3.5.9 or lower, you are vulnerable.

Check Version:

wp plugin list --name=chart-builder --field=version

Verify Fix Applied:

Verify Chartify plugin version is 3.6.0 or higher in WordPress admin panel

📡 Detection & Monitoring

Log Indicators:

Unusual POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with 'action' parameter containing 'chart_builder_' patterns from unauthenticated IPs
Multiple failed authentication attempts followed by successful administrative actions

Network Indicators:

HTTP POST requests to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with chart-builder action parameters from external IPs without authentication cookies

SIEM Query:

source="web_access.log" AND uri="/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php" AND method="POST" AND (form_data.action CONTAINS "chart_builder" OR query_string.action CONTAINS "chart_builder") AND NOT (cookie CONTAINS "wordpress_logged_in" OR auth_header EXISTS)

📊 Metadata

CVE ID: CVE-2025-11171

CVSS v3 Score: 5.3 (MEDIUM)

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

CWE: CWE-306

EPSS Score: 0.34% exploit probability (56.4th percentile)

Published: October 8, 2025

Last Updated: October 8, 2025

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