Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This WordPress plugin flaw lets anyone submit contact-form content that becomes injected HTML inside generated emails. The main business risk is phishing or deception of staff or customers who trust emails sent through the site. The bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or confirmed active exploitation.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation on public WordPress sites that use PirateForms for customer or staff communication. The issue is high severity, unauthenticated, and phishing-oriented, but current sources do not prove active exploitation.
Technical view
CVE-2019-25145 affects Contact Form & SMTP Plugin by PirateForms up to and including 2.5.1. The reported issue is insufficient sanitization and output escaping in public/class-pirateforms-public.php, allowing unauthenticated HTML injection into emails. CVSS 3.1 score is 7.2 with network attack vector and no privileges required.
Likely exposure
Exposure is limited to WordPress sites running PirateForms Contact Form & SMTP Plugin versions up to 2.5.1, especially public contact forms that send emails to users, staff, or shared mailboxes.
Exploitation context
The source bundle supports unauthenticated exploitation potential and phishing impact, but does not include exploit code, confirmed exploitation, or KEV evidence. A public Nintechnet writeup is referenced, so defenders should assume the issue is publicly known.
Researcher notes
The CVE record and description identify CWE-79, HTML injection, and the vulnerable file path. Remediation evidence is incomplete in the supplied bundle, so avoid naming a fixed version unless confirmed from vendor or trusted advisory data.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory WordPress sites for PirateForms and record installed versions.
- If version is 2.5.1 or older, check vendor guidance for fixed versions.
- Disable or replace the plugin where no supported fixed version is available.
- Restrict who receives contact-form emails until remediation is complete.
- Treat suspicious form-generated emails as potential phishing attempts.
Validation and detection
- Confirm whether PirateForms is installed on each WordPress instance.
- Verify the installed plugin version is greater than 2.5.1 or otherwise remediated.
- Review contact-form email handling for unsafe HTML rendering.
- Search recent form-generated emails for unexpected HTML or phishing content.
- Confirm monitoring covers contact-form abuse and suspicious outbound email patterns.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-79: User-session and phishing behavior lookup
Client-side and session-facing weaknesses should be reviewed alongside initial-access and user-execution behaviors. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2019-25145 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7.2 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N3.92.7Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.2HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.