# CVE-2025-12849: Contest Gallery <= 28.0.2 - Missing Authorization

> Unauthenticated attackers can inject arbitrary media attachments into galleries and manipulate metadata due to missing capability checks in the Contest Gallery plugin.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 15 Nov 2025
- **Updated:** 8 Apr 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-x9r6-jv66-hp3g

## What is CVE-2025-12849?

CVE-2025-12849 is a medium-severity missing authorization vulnerability in contest-gallery Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe, published on 15 Nov 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The Contest Gallery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 28.0.2. This is due to the plugin registering the `cg_check_wp_admin_upload_v10` AJAX action for both authenticated and unauthenticated users without implementing capability checks or nonce verification. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary WordPress media attachments into galleries and manipulate gallery metadata via the `cg_check_wp_admin_upload_v10` action. It does not enable an attacker to move or upload files.

Weakness: CWE-862 (Missing Authorization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-12849?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-12849?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-12849 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-12849 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-12849 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-12849 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-12849 is a medium-severity missing authorization vulnerability in contest-gallery Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe, published on 15 Nov 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-12849 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: contest-gallery Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-12849/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-12849/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-12849
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-12849
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-12849

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-12849/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.