Overview
The rapid growth of the e-commerce industry has led to the widespread use of different web applications to cater to the needs of businesses, one such application being WP Easy Contact. But, just like any other software, WP Easy Contact is not immune to vulnerabilities. One of the severe vulnerabilities affecting it is ‘Deserialization of Untrusted Data,’ which could expose the system to potential compromise or data leakage.
This issue is a cause for concern as it impacts emarket-design WP Easy Contact versions up to 4.0.1, a popular contact management plugin for WordPress used by many online businesses. The vulnerability, classified as CVE-2025-53572, has a CVSS severity rating of 8.1, indicating a high level of severity.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-53572
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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- • Anonymous aliases
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Product | Affected Versions
emarket-design WP Easy Contact | up to 4.0.1
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability exploits the process of deserialization. Deserialization is the reverse process of serialization, where byte streams are converted back into objects. However, when this process is done on untrusted data, it can lead to Object Injection. The attacker can exploit this by sending malicious serialized objects that, when deserialized, result in behavior that can compromise the system or lead to data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
Here’s a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited:
POST /contact_form_submit HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
form_data=O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:4:"code";s:39:"system('cat /etc/passwd');";}In this example, the attacker sends a serialized object in the “form_data” parameter that, when deserialized, executes a system command to read sensitive data from the server.
Mitigation
The best way to mitigate this vulnerability is to apply the vendor-provided patch. If the patch is not immediately available, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as a temporary mitigation. These systems can detect and block known malicious serialized objects, effectively mitigating the threat. However, they should not be seen as a long-term solution, and patching the system should be a priority.
