Overview
The CVE-2025-8142 is a significant security vulnerability impacting all versions up to and including 8.6.7 of the Soledad theme for WordPress. This vulnerability, categorized as a Local File Inclusion (LFI), allows authenticated attackers with Contributor-level access and above to exploit a flaw in the ‘header_layout’ parameter and execute arbitrary .php files on the server. As a result, it poses severe risks to WordPress websites utilizing the Soledad theme, as it can potentially compromise system integrity, leak sensitive data, and even allow unauthorized code execution.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-8142
Severity: High (8.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low (Contributor-level access)
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
Escape the Surveillance Era
Most apps won’t tell you the truth.
They’re part of the problem.
Phone numbers. Emails. Profiles. Logs.
It’s all fuel for surveillance.
Ameeba Chat gives you a way out.
- • No phone number
- • No email
- • No personal info
- • Anonymous aliases
- • End-to-end encrypted
Chat without a trace.
Product | Affected Versions
Soledad WordPress Theme | all versions up to and including 8.6.7
How the Exploit Works
The exploit works by the attacker injecting a malicious file path into the ‘header_layout’ parameter of the Soledad WordPress theme. As the theme does not sufficiently sanitize the input for this parameter, an authenticated attacker can insert a path to an arbitrary .php file that they have uploaded to the server. When the server processes the ‘header_layout’ parameter, it treats the malicious file path as a local one and includes the specified .php file leading to its execution.
Conceptual Example Code
Here’s a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This pseudocode represents a scenario in which the attacker uses an HTTP POST request to inject the path to their malicious .php file into the ‘header_layout’ parameter:
POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=soledad_ocdi_import_demo HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
header_layout=../../uploads/malicious.phpIn this example, `soledad_ocdi_import_demo` is the action that handles theme layout imports, `header_layout` is the vulnerable parameter, and `../../uploads/malicious.php` is the path to the malicious .php file uploaded by the attacker.
Mitigation Guidance
The recommended mitigation strategy is to apply the vendor patch as soon as possible. If the patch cannot be applied immediately, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation. These tools can be configured to block or alert on attempts to exploit the ‘header_layout’ parameter. However, these are only temporary solutions, and the definitive action against this vulnerability is to update the Soledad WordPress theme to a version that has fixed this issue.