Nome del plugin	Funnel Builder by FunnelKit
Type of Vulnerability	Privilege escalation
CVE Number	CVE-2025-7654
Urgenza	Alto
CVE Publish Date	2025-08-18
Source URL	CVE-2025-7654

Urgent: FunnelKit (Funnel Builder) Privilege Escalation (CVE-2025-7654) — What WordPress Site Owners Must Do Now

Summary: A privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2025-7654) affecting Funnel Builder by FunnelKit (versions ≤ 3.11.0.2) has been disclosed. The flaw allows an authenticated user with the Contributor role to escalate privileges to a higher level, potentially leading to site takeover. A patch is available in version 3.11.1. This post explains the risk, how the bug is abused at a high level, detection options, immediate mitigations, longer-term hardening, and how WP-Firewall can protect your site now — even before you can update.

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Contents

• What happened (high-level)
• Why this is serious: threat model and impact
• How the vulnerability works (high level, no PoC)
• Immediate actions for site owners and administrators
• Technical detection and indicators of compromise
• Temporary mitigations if you cannot update immediately
• How a Web Application Firewall (WAF) like WP-Firewall protects you
• Recommended virtual patch / WAF rule guidance (pseudo rules)
• Recovery and incident response checklist
• Developer guidance: how plugin authors should fix and avoid similar bugs
• Longer-term hardening and operations best practices
• Useful WP-CLI and SQL queries for triage
• Sign up for WP-Firewall Basic (Free) — Protect your site now

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What happened (high-level)

A privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Funnel Builder by FunnelKit was publicly disclosed. The vulnerability allows an attacker who already has an authenticated Contributor-level account (or similar low-privileged account) to escalate their privileges and gain elevated capabilities. The vendor released a fixed plugin version 3.11.1 — update immediately where possible.

Key facts:

• Affected versions: Funnel Builder by FunnelKit ≤ 3.11.0.2
• Fixed in: 3.11.1
• CVE: CVE-2025-7654
• CVSS (published severity): 8.8 (high / medium-high, depending on scoring context)
• Required starting access: Contributor (authenticated low-privilege user)
• Impact: privilege escalation up to administrative capabilities, enabling site takeover

This bug is rated high because an attacker doesn’t need to find an unprivileged login — Contributor accounts are commonly created on many editorial sites, marketing hubs, or where guest authors are allowed.

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Why this is serious: threat model and impact

Most WordPress sites rely on role separation: Contributors write content but cannot publish, install plugins, or modify site settings. A vulnerability that elevates a Contributor to Administrator undermines this critical isolation and opens the door for:

• Creation of backdoor admin accounts
• Installation of malicious plugins or themes
• Modification of existing themes to include persistent backdoors
• Exfiltration or deletion of data
• Escalation to server-level compromise if combined with other flaws
• Mass exploitation: attackers can automate attempts across sites with the vulnerable plugin

Because the vulnerability requires only a low-privileged authenticated user, it is particularly dangerous on sites that accept guest authorship, allow client logins, or have any untrusted contributor accounts. Additionally, automated tools often scan for vulnerable plugin versions — so time to patch is critical.

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How the vulnerability works (high level; intentionally non-exploitative)

I’ll describe the root cause pattern without sharing exploit code. The vulnerability is an authorization/identification failure: a plugin endpoint or functionality intended for privileged users lacked proper capability or capability-check enforcement. This allowed actions that should have been limited to higher roles (editor/administrator) to be executed by users with the Contributor role.

Common patterns that lead to this class of bugs:

• Missing or incorrect use of current_user_can() checks before performing privileged actions
• Actions exposed via admin-ajax.php or REST endpoints that don’t enforce correct capability checks or nonces
• Shared libraries included by several plugins exposing a function that trusts request parameters to select a user or role
• Logic that maps a “contributor-provided” flag to elevated privileges without proper vetting

In practice, the attacker authenticates (e.g., logs in as a Contributor) and calls a plugin endpoint or action. Because the backend does not validate capabilities correctly, the action runs with elevated effect (creating or updating a user role, modifying usermeta to grant more capabilities, or directly creating a new admin user).

We intentionally avoid publishing specific exploit details. Responsible disclosure and avoiding easy copy-paste PoCs helps reduce abuse.

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Immediate actions for site owners and administrators

If you manage WordPress sites that run Funnel Builder by FunnelKit, follow these steps immediately — do not wait:

1. Check plugin versions
   WordPress Admin → Plugins → find Funnel Builder by FunnelKit
   If version is ≤ 3.11.0.2, update immediately to 3.11.1.
2. If you cannot update immediately, apply temporary mitigations (see next section).
3. Review user accounts
   Audit all users with Contributor role and higher.
   Remove or suspend any untrusted contributor accounts.
   For all admin users, ensure passwords are strong; consider forcing password resets.
4. Scan for suspicious admin or newly created accounts
   Look for accounts created around the disclosure date or since your last audit.
5. Review plugin changelogs and vendor advisories
   Ensure you have the official patch (3.11.1) applied and note if a forced rollback or reinstallation is required.
6. Consider immediate WAF/virtual patching
   If you host many sites or cannot update immediately, enable a WAF rule set that blocks known exploit patterns or blocks access to vulnerable endpoints from untrusted IPs.
7. Monitor logs closely for suspicious activity (admin-ajax POSTs, REST calls, new users).
8. If you find signs of compromise, follow the incident response checklist below.

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Technical detection and indicators of compromise (IoCs)

When triaging, watch for these suspicious indicators. Some are generic and will need human review.

Network / Request indicators

• Richieste POST ripetute a admin-ajax.php with unfamiliar actions — especially actions related to funnel or builder endpoints.
• POST/GET to REST endpoints under /wp-json/* that reference funnelkit or library endpoints you don’t expose.
• Requests that attempt to modify usermeta, roles, or create new users.

WordPress database / user indicators

• New accounts with Administrator capability created recently:
  • WP-CLI: wp user list --role=administrator --format=csv
  • SQL: SELECT ID,user_login,user_email,user_registered FROM wp_users WHERE ID IN (SELECT user_id FROM wp_usermeta WHERE meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' AND meta_value LIKE '%administrator%') ORDER BY user_registered DESC;
• Unexpected changes to existing admin accounts (user_email, display_name, user_registered).
• Extra or unusual usermeta entries: custom meta keys pointing at unexpected capabilities.

Filesystem indicators

• New or modified plugin/theme files with recent timestamps.
• Shell.php, .ico, or unusual PHP files in wp-content/caricamenti.
• Modified il file wp-config.php or unexpected additions to themes (e.g., backdoor code in funzioni.php).

Logs

• Successful logins from unusual IP ranges or unfamiliar country origins.
• New sessions for admin accounts from devices you don’t recognize.
• Elevated privilege actions immediately following activity from a contributor account.

Examples of useful detection commands

wp user list --fields=ID,user_login,user_email,user_registered,roles --format=table

wp db query "SELECT user_id, meta_key, meta_value FROM wp_usermeta WHERE meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' AND meta_value LIKE '%administrator%';"

If any of the above are present and not explainable, treat as possible compromise and initiate a full incident response.

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Temporary mitigations if you cannot update immediately

Sometimes plugins are in use on production sites where immediate updates are not possible — in those cases apply layered mitigations:

1. Limit Contributor account creation
   Temporarily disable new Contributor registrations.
   Approve/verify all current contributors.
2. Restrict access to sensitive plugin endpoints
   If you know the vulnerable endpoint path (or typical admin-ajax action name), block it with .htaccess or at the server level for external access or limit to trusted IP ranges.
   Example (.htaccess) to block a specific script or path:

   <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
     RewriteEngine On
     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php$ [NC]
     RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} action=some_vulnerable_action [NC]
     RewriteRule .* - [F]
   </IfModule>
   

   Note: be careful with broad admin-ajax blocks, as admin-ajax is used by many legitimate features.

3. Disable plugin temporarily
   If feasible, deactivate the Funnel Builder plugin until you can apply the patch.
4. Harden logging and increase monitoring
   Enable detailed logging for admin-ajax and REST calls.
   Watch authentication logs and alert on account privilege changes.
5. Enforce two-factor authentication for all admin/editor accounts
   While not directly blocking the exploit if admin creation is possible, 2FA for existing admins limits post-exploitation utility.
6. Limit write permissions
   Use server-level rules to block PHP execution in upload directories:

   <FilesMatch "\.php$">
     Deny from all
   </FilesMatch>
   

7. Temporarily reduce contributor privileges
   Use role-management to temporarily remove contributor rights that could trigger vulnerable flows (for example, disable access to certain meta or upload capabilities).

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How a Web Application Firewall (WAF) like WP-Firewall helps

A properly configured WAF is an essential layer in a defense-in-depth plan. WP-Firewall can help in several ways:

• Virtual patching: WAF rules can block exploit traffic targeting the vulnerable endpoint or request pattern, giving you time to update across many sites.
• Behavior-based detection: Detect anomalous sequences of actions (contributor performing admin operations) and block or alert.
• Access control: Block or throttle suspicious IPs or geolocations attempting repeated exploitation attempts.
• Signature blocking: Match known malicious payloads and stop them before they reach WordPress PHP.
• Hardening presets: Pre-built rules to mitigate OWASP Top 10 and common CMS-specific authorization bypass patterns.

If you cannot patch immediately across a fleet of sites (e.g., agency, host, multisite), WP-Firewall’s managed rules provide immediate protection against commonly observed exploit patterns without code changes to the plugin.

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Recommended virtual patch / WAF rule guidance (pseudo rules)

Below are example pseudo-rules that a WAF administrator or WP-Firewall policy engineer could add. These are conceptual — adapt to your environment.

1. Block contributor-originated actions that attempt to modify roles/users
   Trigger: POST requests with admin-ajax.php or REST write endpoints where the request attempts to:
   • set role to ‘administrator’
   • modify wp_capabilities meta
   • create a user with role=administrator

   Block/alert: Block and log the source IP.

2. Block suspicious admin-ajax actions
   Trigger: POST to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with action matching known funnel/woofunnel endpoints (exact names withheld to avoid leaking exploit patterns)
   Response: 403 Forbidden for non-admin users.
3. Throttle repeated contributor requests
   Trigger: more than N POSTs per minute from the same contributor account that target admin endpoints
   Response: block or captcha challenge
4. Enforce nonce presence for POSTs that target privileged actions
   Trigger: POST without valid _wpnonce (or invalid/expired) to admin-ajax or REST endpoints that modify users/roles
   Response: block

Example pseudo-WAF signature (conceptual)
If:
– RequestMethod == POST
– RequestURI matches /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php OR RequestURI startsWith /wp-json/
– Body contains (role=administrator OR wp_capabilities)
– Authenticated user role == contributor
Then:
– Deny request (HTTP 403), log details, send alert

Note: Real WAF rules must be tested on staging before production activation to avoid false positives. WP-Firewall’s managed virtual patching is tuned to minimize false positives.

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Recovery and incident response checklist

If you detect a confirmed or suspected exploitation, follow this prioritized checklist:

1. Isolate
   If possible, take the site offline or place it behind maintenance mode while you investigate.
   Block attacker IPs and suspicious sessions.
2. Preserve evidence
   Collect logs (web server, access logs, error logs, WordPress logs if available).
   Export database snapshot and filesystem snapshot for forensics.
3. Change credentials
   Reset passwords for all administrator accounts.
   Invalidate all active sessions:

   wp user session destroy <user-id>
   

   Rotate API keys, OAuth tokens, and any application passwords.

4. Remove persistence
   Look for webshells, modified plugin/theme files, and delete unauthorized code.
   Reinstall plugins and themes from trusted sources — do not trust files modified while compromised.
5. Clean or restore
   If you have a known-good backup from before compromise, restore from backup.
   If not, clean iteratively: remove unauthorized admin users, revert modified files to vendor copies.
6. Post-incident hardening
   Apply plugin update (3.11.1).
   Enforce 2FA for administrators.
   Harden file permissions and disable file editing in WP: add define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true); A il file wp-config.php
   Review and tighten user roles.
7. Report and notify
   Notify affected stakeholders, clients, or data subjects as required by policy or compliance.
8. Monitor
   Keep elevated monitoring for several weeks (watch for re-introduced backdoors).

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Developer guidance: how plugin authors should fix and avoid similar bugs

If you’re a plugin developer, this class of vulnerability is avoidable with proper secure coding practices:

1. Enforce capability checks consistently
   Utilizzo current_user_can() before performing any privileged action.
   Esempio:

   if ( ! current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) ) {
       wp_die( 'Insufficient permissions.' );
   }
   

   Do not rely on client-provided values (e.g., hidden form fields) to determine capabilities.

2. Use nonces for state-changing requests
   Verify nonces for admin-ajax and REST endpoints. Nonces prevent simple CSRF-style abuse and contribute to context validation.
   Esempio:

   check_admin_referer( 'funnelkit_action_nonce' );
   

   For REST API: use permission_callback.

3. REST endpoints should use permission_callback
   When registering REST routes:

   register_rest_route( 'funnelkit/v1', '/update-user/', array(
       'methods'  => 'POST',
       'callback' => 'funnelkit_update_user',
       'permission_callback' => function() {
           return current_user_can( 'edit_users' ); // or appropriate capability
       },
   ));
   

4. Avoid privilege elevation via indirect flows
   Validate input thoroughly and never transform contributor-provided data into privileged operations without validation.
5. Unit and security tests
   Include automated tests that assert a contributor cannot invoke admin-only code paths.
6. Use principle of least privilege internally
   Break up operations into minimally privileged actions and use server-side checks rather than assuming the user or frontend will be honest.

These practices help prevent identification/auth failures that lead to privilege escalation.

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Longer-term hardening and operations best practices

To reduce the blast radius of any future plugin vulnerability, adopt the following:

• Principle of least privilege:
  Create only the roles you need; avoid granting unnecessary capabilities.
• Account hygiene:
  Regularly audit users and remove inactive accounts.
• Enforce strong authentication:
  Two-factor authentication for editors and administrators.
• Automated patching:
  When safe for your environment, enable automatic security updates for plugins, or schedule maintenance windows for updates.
• WAF and virtual patching:
  Use a managed WAF to get immediate protection when zero-day disclosures occur.
• File integrity monitoring:
  Monitor for unexpected file changes in plugins, themes, and uploads directories.
• Logging and SIEM:
  Send logs to a centralized service and alert on suspicious patterns.
• Regular backups:
  Maintain tested backups that can be restored quickly in case of compromise.
• Vulnerability inventory:
  Maintain an inventory of installed plugins and their versions to make rollout of patches quicker.

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Useful WP-CLI and SQL queries for triage

Quick checks you can run to assess your site’s state:

1. List all plugins and versions:

   wp plugin list --format=table
   

2. Get Funnel Builder version:

   wp plugin get funnel-builder --field=version
   

   (plugin slug may differ; list plugins to find the correct slug)

3. List admin users:

   wp user list --role=administrator --format=table
   

4. Find recently created users:

   wp user list --role=subscriber --after='2025-08-01' --format=table
   

5. Query database for usermeta granting admin capabilities:

   wp db query "SELECT um.user_id, u.user_login, um.meta_value FROM wp_usermeta um JOIN wp_users u ON u.ID = um.user_id WHERE um.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' AND um.meta_value LIKE '%administrator%';"
   

6. Export access logs around suspicious activity (server):

   grep "admin-ajax.php" /var/log/apache2/access.log | tail -n 200
   

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Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Q: If I am using a managed host, do I still need to do anything?
A: Yes. Hosts may patch at the server level, but plugin updates and WordPress-facing mitigations remain your responsibility. Confirm plugin update status and request virtual patching if needed.

Q: Can I just delete the plugin?
A: Deleting the plugin can stop the vulnerable code from executing, but if your site is already compromised you must still perform a full cleanup. Deactivation or deletion is a reasonable temporary measure if updating is impossible right now.

Q: My site allows guest authors. What should I do?
A: Temporarily suspend contributor registrations, audit existing contributors, and consider stricter onboarding and verification for new contributors.

Q: Will a WAF prevent everything?
A: No single layer is foolproof. A WAF can significantly reduce risk and buy time, but it should be part of layered defenses: timely updates, strong auth, backups, monitoring.

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Final summary

CVE-2025-7654 is a serious privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Funnel Builder by FunnelKit (≤ 3.11.0.2). If your site uses this plugin, update to 3.11.1 immediately. If you cannot update right away, implement temporary mitigations — restrict contributor accounts, tighten server access to vulnerable endpoints, enable 2FA, increase logging, and deploy WAF/virtual patching. After any suspicious activity, follow the incident response checklist to isolate, preserve evidence, clean persistence, and recover.

Protecting your WordPress site is a combination of: fast patching, layered defenses, active monitoring, and knowing how to respond quickly if things go wrong. Apply the update now and then use the guidance above to ensure your site is resilient against follow-up attacks.

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If you want, I can:

• Provide a custom WP-Firewall rule snippet tailored to your server logs and the plugin endpoint names on your site (requires the endpoint names or example log entries).
• Walk through a step-by-step incident response playbook for a compromised site with commands customized to your hosting environment.
• Help you set up WP-CLI scripts to automate scanning and remediation across multiple sites.

Stay safe — and update to Funnel Builder 3.11.1 as your first step.