Missing Authorization in WP Messiah TOP Table Of Contents Plugin

Impact Analysis

The vulnerability allows unprivileged users to perform actions that should be restricted to higher-privileged roles, potentially leading to unauthorized changes or access within the WordPress site.

However, the impact is considered low severity with a CVSS score of 4.3 and is unlikely to be widely exploited.

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Executive Summary

CVE-2026-25314 is a Broken Access Control vulnerability in the WordPress TOP Table Of Contents Plugin versions up to and including 1.3.31.

This issue arises from missing authorization, authentication, or nonce token checks in certain functions, allowing unprivileged users to perform actions reserved for higher-privileged roles.

It requires only subscriber-level privileges to exploit.

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Detection Guidance

[{'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'This vulnerability arises from missing authorization checks in the WordPress TOP Table Of Contents Plugin up to version 1.3.31, allowing subscriber-level users to perform unauthorized actions.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Detection involves verifying the plugin version installed on your WordPress site and monitoring for unauthorized actions performed by low-privileged users.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': "You can check the plugin version via the WordPress admin dashboard or by running the following command on your server to find the plugin version in the plugin's main file:"}, {'type': 'list_item', 'content': 'grep "Version:" wp-content/plugins/top-table-of-contents/top-table-of-contents.php'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Additionally, monitoring web server logs for suspicious requests that perform privileged actions without proper authorization can help detect exploitation attempts.'}] [1]

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Mitigation Strategies

The primary mitigation step is to update the TOP Table Of Contents plugin to version 1.4.0 or later, where the vulnerability is patched.

If immediate updating is not possible, consider restricting subscriber-level user capabilities temporarily to prevent exploitation.

Using security plugins or services like Patchstack that offer auto-updates and mitigation solutions for vulnerable plugins can also help reduce risk.

Regularly monitor your WordPress site for unusual activity and ensure proper access control configurations are in place.

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Compliance Impact

I don't know

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