CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-13677 — The Simple Download Counter plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Path Traversal in all versions up to, and including, 2.2.2

Medium CVSS 4.9

The Simple Download Counter plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Path Traversal in all versions up to, and including, 2.2.2. This is due to insufficient path validation in the `simple_download_counter_parse_path()` function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Administrator-level access and above, to read the contents of arbitrary files on the server, which may contain sensitive information such as database credentials (wp-config.php) or system files. Please note that the vendor opted to continue to allow remote file downloads from arbitrary locations on the server, however, has disabled this functionality on multi-sites and provided a warning to site owners in the readme.txt when they install the plugin. While not an optimal patch, we have considered this sufficient and recommend users proceed to use the plugin with caution.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
4.9 (3.1)
Published
2025-12-10
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
php/wordpress
Weaknesses
CWE-22

Affected products

No browser-safe affected-product rows are available.

Matched remediation archetype

Path traversal, unsafe upload, and file handling

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted filenames, archive entries, URLs, and path segments into read, write, include, extraction, and upload operations.
  • Identify filesystem roots, mount permissions, symbolic-link behavior, archive handling, and whether uploaded content is web-accessible or executable.
  • Review canonicalization and containment checks across supported operating systems and storage backends.

Remediate safely

  • Generate server-side storage identifiers and resolve paths beneath a fixed root using filesystem-aware containment checks.
  • Reject absolute, parent-relative, alternate-separator, device, link, and archive entries that escape the intended root.
  • Store uploads outside executable or served paths, validate type and size, and use private atomic temporary files.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.