Plugin Name	Ultra Addons Lite for Elementor
Type of Vulnerability	Authenticated Stored XSS
CVE Number	CVE-2025-9077
Urgency	Low
CVE Publish Date	2025-10-03
Source URL	CVE-2025-9077

Critical advisory: Ultra Addons Lite for Elementor (<= 1.1.9) — Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored XSS via Animated Text Field (CVE-2025-9077)

Author: WP-Firewall Security Team
Date: 03 October 2025

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Overview

A stored Cross‑Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability has been disclosed for the Ultra Addons Lite for Elementor plugin (versions <= 1.1.9). The vulnerability allows an authenticated user with Contributor privileges (or higher) to inject HTML/JavaScript into an “animated text” field which is then rendered on the public site without adequate output sanitization. The issue is tracked as CVE-2025-9077.

Although the vulnerability score and public writeups classify this as medium/low severity (CVSS 6.5 in the public report), the real-world risk depends on site configuration, the number of privileged accounts that can create content/widgets, and whether site visitors or higher‑privileged users (editors, admins) will view the affected pages. Stored XSS in a widget or post meta is particularly dangerous because it persists in the database and executes whenever a page containing the widget is viewed.

This advisory explains the technical root cause, attack scenarios, detection methods, short‑ and long‑term mitigations, suggested virtual‐patch/WAF rules, incident response, and recommendations to harden your WordPress site.

If you manage sites that use Elementor and Ultra Addons Lite, treat this as actionable intelligence: even when a vendor fix is not yet available, site owners can protect visitors and admins using layered mitigations (role configuration, scanning, and a web application firewall).

What was disclosed (short)

• Affected software: Ultra Addons Lite for Elementor plugin — versions <= 1.1.9
• Vulnerability type: Stored Cross‑Site Scripting (XSS)
• CVE: CVE‑2025‑9077
• Privilege required: Contributor (or higher)
• Impact: Injection of JavaScript that executes in the browser of visitors (including site editors/admins depending on the page), which may lead to session theft, redirect/malvertising, unauthorized actions via forged requests, and other malicious activities.
• Fix status at disclosure: No official vendor patch available (N/A)
• Recommended immediate action: Apply mitigations below, restrict user privileges, remove/disable the vulnerable plugin if feasible, or enable virtual patching via WAF.

Technical analysis — how this stored XSS works

From the public disclosure and supporting writeups, the vulnerability appears in an “animated text” field provided by the plugin. The typical flow for stored XSS of this class is:

1. A user with Contributor (or higher) privilege edits or creates content that includes an Ultra Addons widget (an “animated text” widget). Widget settings may be stored as widget settings, post meta, or Elementor data.
2. The plugin accepts input for the animated text field without sufficient sanitization or escaping on output. The plugin likely assumes the field contains safe HTML or text and outputs it directly into page markup.
3. Malicious JavaScript or event handlers saved in that field become persistent in the database. Once the page containing that widget is viewed, the browser executes the injected script in the context of the site origin.
4. If the victim is an admin or editor (or anyone with more privilege) and visits the page (or previews it), the script can perform actions on behalf of that user (e.g., change settings, create backdoor content, exfiltrate cookies or tokens, modify options, create new admin accounts by CSRF, etc.), depending on the available attack surface.

Why Contributor privilege is relevant

WordPress Contributor role normally cannot publish posts and does not have the unfiltered_html capability. However, third‑party plugins sometimes save widget settings or allow content insertion via REST endpoints or widget editors that bypass typical sanitization or the “unfiltered_html” restrictions. If the plugin renders widget settings (stored as strings) without proper escaping, a contributor who can add content or widgets becomes a reliable attack vector for stored XSS.

Attack scenarios and potential impact

Stored XSS in a front‑end widget can enable many attack chains:

• Visitor impact (low‑privilege targets):
  • Injected script can redirect visitors to malicious pages, show unwanted ads, or attempt to exploit browser vulnerabilities.
  • Phishing or fake login forms delivered to unsuspecting visitors.
• Admin/Editor compromise (high impact):
  • If an admin/editor loads the page and the script executes, it may:
  • Exfiltrate authentication cookies or REST API tokens.
  • Trigger authenticated requests (using the admin’s browser) to create admin users or change plugin/theme settings.
  • Install persistence mechanisms (malicious options, create files via upload endpoints, or inject code into theme/plugin editors if available).
  • This is the highest-risk scenario because admin-level actions performed by the injected script can lead to complete site takeover.
• SEO and reputation:
  • Malicious content and redirects can lead to search engine penalties or blacklisting.
• Supply chain/vector reuse:
  • If the site publishes feeds or embeds into other sites, the XSS payload can propagate.

Detection methods — look for stored payloads in your database and content

If you are assessing whether your site is affected or already exploited, search for suspicious content in places the Ultra Addons plugin stores settings and in places where Elementor widgets persist state:

1. Search for script tags and common XSS patterns in the database (wp_posts, wp_postmeta, wp_options, wp_usermeta, and Elementor data tables).

Example SQL snippets:

-- Find script tags in post content:
SELECT ID, post_title, post_type, post_status
FROM wp_posts
WHERE post_content LIKE '%<script%';

-- Search postmeta (widget and elementor serialized data):
SELECT post_id, meta_key, meta_value
FROM wp_postmeta
WHERE meta_value LIKE '%<script%';

-- Search all tables (MySQL): a more costly query but comprehensive (replace DB_NAME):
SELECT TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'DB_NAME'
  AND DATA_TYPE IN ('text', 'longtext', 'varchar')
  AND CONCAT(TABLE_NAME, '.', COLUMN_NAME) IN (
    SELECT CONCAT(TABLE_NAME, '.', COLUMN_NAME)
    FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
  );
-- then grep for '<script' in exports

2. Use WP‑CLI to search faster (if supported on your host):

# Search for "<script" across posts
wp db query "SELECT ID, post_title FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%<script%';"

# Export postmeta and grep (safer to redirect to file)
wp db export - --add-drop-table | grep -i "<script" -n

3. Look for suspicious attributes like onmouseover=, onerror=, javascript:, data: URIs, or encoded payloads (%3Cscript%3E).
4. Check Elementor and Ultra Addons widget storage:

• Elementor often stores content in postmeta with keys like _elementor_data. Inspect that JSON for unexpected HTML/script content.
• Search for widget names or keys used by Ultra Addons (look for plugin namespace or widget slugs) and validate values.

5. Review user actions and recent contributors:
   • Which contributor accounts recently edited or published content that includes Ultra Addons widgets?
   • Look for accounts that have suspicious activity or were created recently.
6. Server logs:
   • Check access logs for suspicious POSTs to admin‑ajax.php, /wp-admin/admin-post.php, or Elementor’s endpoints with parameters containing suspicious payloads.
   • Check error logs for unexpected output injection or PHP warnings.

Proof-of‑concept (safe example)

For detection and testing only, a benign payload like <script>console.log('XSS test')</script> can be used in a staging environment to confirm whether output is escaped on render. Never inject test payloads on a production site that visitors might hit.

When testing:

• Do it on a staging clone of the site.
• Use a non-production account.
• Confirm the plugin renders the content directly without escaping (view page source).

How an attacker could exploit this (high-level)

1. Create a post or widget with the malicious payload in the animated text field (Contributor account).
2. The payload is stored in the database as widget settings or postmeta.
3. When a visitor or a privileged user visits the page, the payload executes in their browser.
4. The payload performs malicious actions (redirect, exfiltrate tokens via AJAX to external server, or execute authenticated actions using the victim’s credentials via hidden forms and POST requests).

Immediate mitigations (fast and practical)

These steps are prioritized to reduce immediate risk while you plan longer-term remediation.

1. Disable or deactivate the vulnerable plugin
   • If you can afford to temporarily disable Ultra Addons Lite and do not need its widgets on the site, deactivate the plugin immediately. This removes the attack surface.
   • If the plugin is required, remove any pages or widgets that use the animated text widget until a patch is available.
2. Restrict contributor privileges and review workflow
   • Change untrusted Contributor accounts to Subscriber temporarily.
   • Require that each Contributor revision be reviewed by an Editor/Admin before publication.
   • Remove or audit recent content created by Contributors that contain Ultra Addons widgets.
3. Remove instances of the animated text widget from public pages
   • Replace the animated text widget with a plain text/HTML block that you control and that is sanitized.
   • Edit pages and remove or sanitize the widget fields (replace with safe text).
4. Harden user accounts
   • Force password resets for admin/editor accounts if you suspect exploitation.
   • Review user list for suspicious accounts and remove or lock them.
5. Apply Content Security Policy (CSP) as a mitigation
   • A strict CSP can limit the impact of XSS by disallowing inline scripts and external script loading. Example header (test carefully):

   Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'self' https://trusted-scripts.example.com; object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self';

   • CSP is a defense‑in‑depth measure; configuring it for a typical WordPress site requires testing to avoid breaking functionality.
6. Scan and remove malicious content
   • Use trusted scanning tools to find and remove injected scripts in posts, postmeta, and options.
   • If you find malicious code that you cannot safely remove, restore from a clean backup.

WAF / virtual patching suggestions (recommended)

A properly designed Web Application Firewall (WAF) or managed virtual patching layer can mitigate stored XSS immediately by blocking malicious payloads at the HTTP layer before they reach the database and block malicious output patterns on the way out.

Here are suggested WAF strategies and example rule patterns (expressed generically — adapt to your WAF syntax):

1. Block POST requests that include script tags in widget save endpoints
   • Target endpoints where widget settings are saved (e.g., admin-ajax.php, REST endpoints used by Elementor/Ultra Addons or widget save endpoints).
   • Example pseudo-rule:
     • If request to admin endpoint AND request body or a parameter contains <script (case-insensitive) OR onerror= OR javascript: then block or challenge (CAPTCHA).
2. Block output that contains script tags for unauthenticated views
   • For front-end responses, inspect payloads for suspicious <script elements that are not part of approved inline scripts. This is more advanced (response scanning) and should be applied with care to avoid false positives.
3. Sanitize incoming parameters with regex filtering
   • For known widget parameter keys (e.g., animated_text, ultra_widget_text), enforce a strict allowlist of characters (letters, numbers, basic punctuation) or disallow angle brackets < and >.
4. Rate-limit or require re-authentication for contributor actions
   • Enforce additional verification (2FA or admin review) for content creation attempts that contain risky characters.
5. Use signature-based rule to detect event handler attributes
   • Block attributes like onmouseover=, onerror=, onclick=, especially when present in text field parameters.
6. Monitor for POSTs to REST endpoints or admin-ajax with suspicious base64 payloads or encoded script tags.

Example pseudo‑regex for WAF request blocking:
Block if request body matches (case‑insensitive): <\s*script\b|on\w+\s*=|javascript:|data:text/html
Note: Fine tune regex for your environment to reduce false positives.

Code-level remediation guidance (for developers)

If you maintain or patch the plugin code yourself (or if you want to create a temporary local patch), the correct fix is to ensure all user-provided values are sanitized and escaped appropriately:

• Sanitize on input (to ensure the database contains safe data) OR escape on output (always required). Proper WordPress practice is:
  • Sanitize user input when saving: use sanitizer functions to remove disallowed tags and attributes (e.g., wp_kses(), sanitize_text_field(), wp_kses_post() depending on allowed content).
  • Escape before output: use esc_html(), esc_attr(), wp_kses_post(), or other escaping functions depending on the output context.

Example safe output for a widget that prints text:

<?php
// $text is the stored value for animated text
echo esc_html( $text ); // if only plain text allowed

// if limited HTML allowed
$allowed = array(
  'br' => array(),
  'strong' => array(),
  'em' => array(),
  'span' => array( 'class' => true ),
);
echo wp_kses( $text, $allowed );
?>

If the plugin must allow certain HTML for animation markup, use wp_kses with a strict allowlist of tags and attributes; never allow event handler attributes (on*), script tags, or javascript: URIs.

Developer checklist:

• Validate and sanitize all widget fields on save.
• Escape data in the exact context it is printed (HTML body, attribute, JS string).
• Ensure REST and AJAX endpoints performing saves check user capabilities and use nonces.
• Remove any call to echo the raw value without escaping.

Logging, monitoring, and detection tips

• Set up alerts for any admin account visiting frontend pages that should not be visited by admins normally (indicating an attacker may be tricking an admin).
• Monitor for spikes in traffic to suspicious external domains (data exfiltration).
• Keep a baseline of normal content and monitor for injected <script> entries via daily scheduled scans.
• Use server integrity monitoring: check for modified theme/plugin files or newly created PHP files.
• Configure HTTP logging to capture POST bodies for forensic analysis (respect privacy and legal considerations).

If you’re already compromised — incident response

1. Isolate:
   • Put the site in maintenance/offline mode or take it offline temporarily to stop further damage to visitors.
2. Preserve evidence:
   • Export a copy of the database and web files for forensic analysis (do not overwrite logs).
   • Take a VM snapshot or copy of the server state where feasible.
3. Clean:
   • Restore from a known-clean backup prior to the compromise.
   • Remove malicious users, scheduled tasks, and backdoors (look for PHP files in uploads, wp-content, theme directories).
   • Replace WordPress core, themes, and plugins with clean copies from the official sources.
4. Rotate secrets:
   • Rotate passwords for WordPress users, database credentials, API tokens, and hosting control panel credentials.
   • Invalidate sessions for all users (force logout).
5. Reassess user roles:
   • Revoke contributor privileges for accounts that do not require them.
   • Audit all user accounts for suspicious privilege escalation.
6. Post‑recovery monitoring:
   • Monitor closely for re-infection.
   • Consider professional incident response if breach is severe.

Long-term prevention and hardening

• Keep plugins and themes up to date and subscribe to vendor advisories.
• Enforce the least privilege model: only give users the roles/capabilities they require.
• Implement a content moderation/review process for low-trust contributors.
• Use a managed WAF or virtual patching layer for rapid protection when plugin patches lag.
• Regularly scan your site and database for anomalies.
• Implement backups with retention and test restores routinely.
• Add HTTP security headers: CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy.

Why stored XSS is deceptively dangerous

Stored XSS is persistent and doesn’t require the attacker to trick users into clicking a special URL: once saved, the payload executes every time the affected page is viewed. An attacker only needs one low‑privilege account that can publish content or manipulate widgets. Even if the site has few visitors, a single visit by an admin or editor can be enough to escalate the attack and achieve a full compromise.

Recommended operational playbook (short checklist)

• Immediately locate any pages using the Ultra Addons “animated text” widget and remove or sanitize them.
• Restrict contributor account actions and require editorial review.
• If feasible, deactivate the plugin until a vendor patch is released.
• Enable virtual patching with your WAF: block requests containing <script> and event handler attributes to widget save endpoints.
• Scan the database for suspicious script tags or event handler attributes and clean any confirmed malicious entries.
• Rotate admin credentials and enable 2FA for admin/editor accounts.
• Monitor logs and revisit the site in 24–72 hours for signs of re-infection.

A developer’s quick patch example (conceptual)

If you are comfortable editing plugin files locally (and only in a non-production environment), look for the function that outputs the animated text and wrap the output in escaping functions. Example:

Before (vulnerable, unsafe):

<?php
// prints raw content (unsafe)
echo $settings['animated_text'];
?>

After (safer):

<?php
// treat as plain text
echo esc_html( $settings['animated_text'] );

// or if limited HTML allowed:
$allowed = array( 'span' => array( 'class' => true ) );
echo wp_kses( $settings['animated_text'], $allowed );
?>

Make sure to also sanitize on save:

<?php
$clean = wp_kses( $_POST['animated_text'], $allowed );
update_post_meta( $post_id, '_animated_text', $clean );
?>

Note: editing plugin code is a stopgap and can be overwritten on plugin update — maintain your own patch, test thoroughly, and apply vendor fixes when available.

Communicating with your team and users

If you find evidence of exploitation, prepare a short internal incident notice for your stakeholders:

• What happened (concise)
• What you did (isolate, remove plugin or widget, rotate credentials)
• What you plan to do (clean up, monitor, restore from backup, apply fix when available)
• Ask users to change passwords if admin accounts might be affected

Do not post technical indicators publicly in detail that could enable copy‑cats before you have cleaned affected instances.

Protecting sites at scale — recommendations for hosts and agencies

• Implement global WAF rules to catch common stored XSS patterns across customer sites.
• Provide a managed review workflow for user-generated content for client sites that allow many contributors.
• Offer emergency response options (isolate site, scanning, cleanup).
• Use virtual patching so you can protect clients while vendors ship official patches.

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Conclusion — your next steps (in order)

1. Audit your site for Ultra Addons Lite usage and identify any pages or widgets that could be affected.
2. If possible, deactivate the plugin or remove the animated text widget until a vendor patch is available.
3. Restrict Contributor privileges and enforce an approval workflow.
4. Scan your database for injected scripts and sanitize or remove malicious entries.
5. Apply WAF rules (or enable managed virtual patching via a security provider) to block malicious requests and outputs.
6. Harden admin accounts and rotate passwords, enable 2FA for high-privilege users.
7. Monitor logs and traffic for suspicious behavior for at least 30 days after remediation.

We recognize vendors sometimes need time to produce an official update. In the meantime, layered protection — reducing privilege, sanitizing content, and using a reliable WAF — is the best way to keep your site and users safe.

If you need assistance

If you’d like help auditing your site for this vulnerability, implementing virtual patching, or configuring the protections described above, the WP‑Firewall support team is available to guide you through remediation and recovery.

Stay safe, and check your sites today — stored XSS is persistent but manageable when you act quickly.