Introduction
Attackers are actively compromising WordPress sites running the Spirit Framework plugin by bypassing authentication and taking over administrator accounts. This vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-6388, impacts thousands of educational and e-learning platforms that rely on this plugin for critical functionality.
About the parties involved:
- Spirit Framework is developed by Theme Spirit, a vendor specializing in WordPress solutions for educational and e-learning sites. Their flagship Talemy theme and supporting plugins are used by a significant number of institutions and online course providers globally. The Spirit Framework plugin is a core component for many of these deployments, making vulnerabilities in it particularly impactful for the education sector.
Technical Information
CVE-2025-6388 is an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Spirit Framework WordPress plugin, affecting all versions up to and including 1.2.14. The vulnerability is rooted in the custom_actions() function, which handles authentication logic outside of WordPress's standard mechanisms. In these versions, custom_actions() does not properly validate user identity before authenticating a request.
This flaw allows an unauthenticated attacker to log in as any user, including administrators, if they know the username. The attacker crafts a request that triggers custom_actions() and supplies a valid username. Because the function does not enforce credential validation, it grants authentication tokens or session cookies, effectively bypassing all standard WordPress authentication checks.
This issue is classified as CWE-288 (Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel). The vulnerability enables privilege escalation and full site takeover. No public code snippet is available, but the root cause is the absence of proper identity validation in the authentication logic of custom_actions().
Patch Information
The developers of the Spirit Framework plugin have addressed the critical authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2025-6388) by releasing version 1.2.15. This update introduces enhanced validation mechanisms within the custom_actions() function to ensure that user identities are properly authenticated before granting access. By implementing stricter checks, the patch effectively prevents unauthorized users from logging in without valid credentials, thereby safeguarding websites from potential account takeovers and privilege escalations. Website administrators are strongly advised to update to version 1.2.15 immediately to mitigate this security risk.
Patch source:
Affected Systems and Versions
- Product: Spirit Framework plugin for WordPress
- Affected versions: All versions up to and including 1.2.14
- Fixed in: 1.2.15
- Any WordPress installation with Spirit Framework <= 1.2.14 is vulnerable
Vendor Security History
Theme Spirit, the vendor behind Spirit Framework, has a history of multiple security issues in their products. Notably, previous versions of Spirit Framework (up to 1.2.13) were affected by a local file inclusion vulnerability. The vendor typically releases patches after public disclosure rather than proactively, and their security advisories and documentation provide limited details about security best practices or mitigation.
