Critical RomethemeKit For Elementor Plugin Vulnerability Patched

RomethemeKit For Elementor

Arbitrary Plugin Installation/Activation to RCE

30k

CVSS 9.9

This blog post is about the RomethemeKit For Elementor plugin vulnerability. If you're a RomethemeKit For Elementor user, please update the plugin to at least version 1.5.5.

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About the RomethemeKit For Elementor plugin

The plugin RomethemeKit For Elementor, which has over 30k active installations, is one of the most popular free Elementor related plugins in the WordPress repository. The plugin is developed by Rometheme.

This WordPress plugin acts as a toolkit for Elementor website builders, offering a collection of professionally designed templates, sections, widgets, and an icon pack. It streamlines the website creation process by providing pre-made layouts and design elements, reducing the need for extensive design skills and coding.

The security vulnerability

The RomethemeKit For Elementor plugin suffered from an authenticated Arbitrary Plugin Installation/Activation to RCE vulnerability. The vulnerability occurred due to a lack of permission and nonce check when installing and activating a plugin. Due to the behavior of the plugin installation and activation, this vulnerability could lead to Remote Code Execution if a malicious plugin is installed or activated. The vulnerability is fixed in version 1.5.5 and has been tracked with CVE-2025-30911.

The underlying vulnerability exists in the install_requirements function:

public function install_requirements()
{
    include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/plugin.php';
    include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/file.php';
    include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/misc.php';
    include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/class-wp-upgrader.php';

    $plugin = $_POST['plugin'];
    $plugin_file = WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/' . $plugin;
    $plugin_slug = dirname($plugin);

    if (file_exists($plugin_file)) {
        // Activate the plugin if already installed but inactive
        ob_start();
        activate_plugin($plugin);
        ob_clean();
        ob_end_clean();
        wp_send_json_success("Install and Activate Successfully");
    } else {
        ob_start();
        $plugin_download_url = "https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/{$plugin_slug}.latest-stable.zip"; // Adjust URL structure
        $upgrader = new \Plugin_Upgrader();
        $result = $upgrader->install($plugin_download_url);

        if (is_wp_error($result)) {
            wp_send_json_error();
        }
        $activate_result = activate_plugin($plugin);
        if (is_wp_error($activate_result)) {
            wp_send_json_error('Plugin installed but failed to activate: ' . $activate_result->get_error_message());
        }

        wp_send_json_success('Plugin installed and activated successfully.');
    }
}

The function above can be called from the wp_ajax_install_requirements hook. Since there is no proper permission and nonce check on the function, any authenticated users such as Subscriber role users are able to arbitrarily install and activate any plugin on the site, resulting to a possible Remote Code Execution (RCE).

The patch

The vendor initially made an attempt to patch the issue by adding an additional permission check on version 1.5.4. The vendor then implemented a full patch on version 1.5.5 by adding an additional nonce check. The patch can be seen below:

Conclusion

For a critical process such as installing and activating a plugin, make sure to implement a proper permission and nonce check.

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