CVE-2025-2228
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability in the Responsive Addons for Elementor WordPress plugin allows authenticated attackers with Contributor-level access or higher to extract usernames and passwords of users who register via the plugin's registration form and open their registration confirmation email. All WordPress sites using vulnerable versions of this plugin are affected.
💻 Affected Systems
- Responsive Addons for Elementor – Free Elementor Addons Plugin and Elementor Templates
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Attackers gain administrative access to the WordPress site by harvesting administrator credentials, leading to complete site compromise, data theft, or malware injection.
Likely Case
Attackers harvest user credentials for privilege escalation, account takeover, or credential stuffing attacks against other services.
If Mitigated
With proper access controls and monitoring, impact is limited to exposure of non-critical user accounts that can be reset.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated Contributor-level access, which attackers can obtain through social engineering, compromised accounts, or other vulnerabilities.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 1.6.9
Vendor Advisory: https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3261241/
Restart Required: No
Instructions:
1. Log into WordPress admin panel. 2. Navigate to Plugins → Installed Plugins. 3. Find 'Responsive Addons for Elementor'. 4. Click 'Update Now' if available, or download version 1.6.9+ from WordPress.org. 5. Activate the updated plugin.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable vulnerable registration widget
allRemove or disable the Edit Login | Registration Form widget from all pages/posts
Restrict user registration
allDisable user registration entirely if not required
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Remove the Responsive Addons for Elementor plugin entirely and use alternative registration solutions
- Implement strict access controls: limit Contributor roles to trusted users only and monitor for suspicious activity
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check WordPress admin → Plugins → Installed Plugins → Responsive Addons for Elementor version. If version is 1.6.8 or lower, you are vulnerable.Check Version:
wp plugin list --name='responsive-addons-for-elementor' --field=versionVerify Fix Applied:
After updating, verify the plugin version shows 1.6.9 or higher in WordPress admin.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual number of user registrations from Contributor accounts
- Multiple failed login attempts from new IP addresses
- Suspicious access patterns from Contributor-level users
Network Indicators:
- Unusual outbound traffic patterns from WordPress server following user registrations
SIEM Query:
source="wordpress" (event_type="user_registration" AND user_role="contributor") | stats count by src_ip🔗 References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/responsive-addons-for-elementor/trunk/includes/modules-manager/login-register/class-login-register.php#L369
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3261241/
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/659ef2e8-589c-4901-88ce-1d674c056ece?source=cve
