Overview:
CVE-2025-2158 is a high-severity vulnerability identified in the WordPress Review Plugin, which is widely used for building review websites. This vulnerability affects all versions of the plugin up to and including 5.3.5. Exploitation of this vulnerability could potentially compromise the system or lead to data leakage, which makes the vulnerability particularly dangerous.
This vulnerability matters because of the widespread use of WordPress and its plugins. An attacker with Contributor-level access or higher can exploit this vulnerability, enabling them to include and execute arbitrary files on the server. This can potentially lead to compromise of the system or leakage of sensitive data.
Vulnerability Summary:
CVE ID: CVE-2025-2158
Severity: High (CVSS: 8.8)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: Contributor-level access
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products:
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Product | Affected Versions
WordPress Review Plugin | Up to and including 5.3.5
How the Exploit Works:
The vulnerability arises due to an issue in the handling of ‘Post custom fields’ by the WordPress Review Plugin. An authenticated attacker with Contributor-level access can exploit this to include and execute arbitrary PHP files on the server. This can result in the execution of any PHP code present in those files. If the server has ‘pearcmd’ enabled and ‘register_argc_argv’ also enabled, this could lead to complete system compromise.
Conceptual Example Code:
Here’s a hypothetical example of how the vulnerability might be exploited:
POST /wp-admin/post.php HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
post_title=Sample&content=<php? include('/path/to/malicious/file.php'); ?>&action=edit&post_type=reviewIn this example, the attacker is making a POST request to ‘post.php’, an endpoint known to handle ‘Post custom fields’ in the WordPress Review Plugin. The included PHP code is from a malicious file that the attacker has already uploaded to the server.
Mitigation:
The WordPress Review Plugin’s vendor has released a patch to address this vulnerability. It is strongly recommended to apply this patch immediately. If patching is not immediately possible, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as a temporary mitigation measure. Regularly monitoring system logs for unusual activity can also help in early detection of any exploitation attempts.