Overview
In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, new vulnerabilities are discovered every day. One such vulnerability, recently unveiled, is the CVE-2025-31422, which specifically affects the designthemes Visual Art | Gallery WordPress Theme. This vulnerability is caused by the deserialization of untrusted data that allows object injection, thereby leading to potential system compromise or data leakage.
This vulnerability is of significant importance due to the wide usage of WordPress as a content management system worldwide. It affects all versions of the Visual Art | Gallery WordPress Theme, opening up the possibility of a threat actor exploiting this vulnerability to potentially compromise a large number of websites or leak sensitive data.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-31422
Severity: High (CVSS Score: 8.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: System Compromise, Data Leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Visual Art | Gallery WordPress Theme | All versions till 2.4
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability arises from the theme’s handling of untrusted data. During the deserialization process, the theme does not adequately validate or sanitize the input, which allows an attacker to inject malicious objects into the data stream. Once the malicious object is deserialized, it can execute arbitrary code, leading to a potential system compromise or data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how this vulnerability might be exploited. It demonstrates a malicious HTTP request that could be used to deliver the object injection payload.
POST /wp-content/themes/visualart/gallery.php HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/php-serialize
{ "malicious_payload": "O:8:\"stdClass\":1:{s:5:\"shell\";s:7:\"/bin/sh\";}" }In this example, the malicious payload is a serialized PHP object with a shell command embedded. When this payload is deserialized by the vulnerable theme, it could lead to the execution of this shell command, resulting in a system compromise or data leakage.
Mitigation Guidance
The best mitigation against this vulnerability is to apply the vendor patch as soon as it becomes available. In the interim, use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can help to prevent exploitation of this vulnerability. It is also recommended to regularly update WordPress themes and plugins to their latest versions to minimize the risk of similar vulnerabilities.