CVE-2025-12356
📋 TL;DR
The Tickera WordPress plugin has an authorization bypass vulnerability that allows authenticated users with Subscriber-level access or higher to modify event/ticket statuses without proper permissions. This affects all WordPress sites using Tickera plugin versions up to 3.5.6.4. Attackers can disrupt event management by changing post statuses.
💻 Affected Systems
- Tickera – Sell Tickets & Manage Events WordPress plugin
⚠️ 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.
- 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
Malicious actors could cancel or modify all events, causing significant business disruption and financial loss for event organizers.
Likely Case
Disgruntled users or low-privilege attackers modify event statuses to cause confusion, ticket sales issues, or minor operational disruptions.
If Mitigated
With proper access controls and monitoring, impact is limited to minor administrative overhead for restoring correct statuses.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated access but is simple via crafted AJAX requests to the vulnerable endpoint.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 3.5.6.5 and later
Vendor Advisory: https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3422813
Restart Required: No
Instructions:
1. Log into WordPress admin panel. 2. Navigate to Plugins → Installed Plugins. 3. Find Tickera plugin. 4. Click 'Update Now' if available. 5. Alternatively, download latest version from WordPress repository and manually update.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable vulnerable AJAX endpoint
allRemove or restrict access to the wp_ajax_change_ticket_status endpoint
Add to theme's functions.php or custom plugin: remove_action('wp_ajax_change_ticket_status', 'change_ticket_status'); remove_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_change_ticket_status', 'change_ticket_status');
Restrict user roles
allTemporarily limit Subscriber and higher role capabilities
Use WordPress role management plugin to restrict 'edit_posts' capability for Subscriber roles
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to block suspicious AJAX requests to change_ticket_status endpoint
- Enable detailed logging of all AJAX requests and monitor for unauthorized status change attempts
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check WordPress admin → Plugins → Tickera → Version number. If version is 3.5.6.4 or lower, system is vulnerable.Check Version:
wp plugin list --name=tickera --field=version (if WP-CLI installed) or check WordPress admin plugins pageVerify Fix Applied:
After update, verify Tickera plugin version shows 3.5.6.5 or higher in WordPress plugins list.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with action=change_ticket_status from non-admin users
- WordPress audit logs showing post status changes from low-privilege users
Network Indicators:
- HTTP POST requests containing 'action=change_ticket_status' in request body
SIEM Query:
source="wordpress" AND (url_path="/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php" AND request_body="*action=change_ticket_status*")