Description

Customer PHP Object Injection in Essential Real Estate <= 5.3.3 versions.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "8.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-18T14:17:03.650Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-18T14:17:03.650Z",
  "executiveSummary": "An insecure deserialization vulnerability, specifically PHP Object Injection, exists in the Essential Real Estate plugin for WordPress in versions less than or equal to 5.3.3.\nThe vulnerability allows remote unauthenticated or authenticated attackers to manipulate serialized data passed into vulnerable application functions.\nSuccessful exploitation of this flaw can lead to severe security implications, including arbitrary code execution, remote code execution, SQL injection, file deletion, or Server-Side Request Forgery depending on the available gadget chains present in the application scope.\nThe flaw stems from the insecure handling of untrusted user input within PHP unserialize operations.\nAttackers with network access can leverage this vulnerability without requiring high privileges, provided the application processes the malicious payload through the vulnerable code path.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of the vulnerability resides in the insecure usage of the PHP unserialize() function on untrusted data supplied by users without adequate validation or sanitization.\nThe vulnerable component is identified within the Essential Real Estate plugin <= 5.3.3, where user-supplied input is improperly handled and passed directly into deserialization routines.\nThe attack flow begins when an attacker crafts a malicious serialized PHP object payload containing custom properties designed to leverage existing classes and methods within the application or its dependent libraries, commonly referred to as gadget chains.\nThe attacker transmits this payload via network protocols (HTTP/HTTPS) to the target web application, targeting the vulnerable endpoint or parameter that processes the input.\nUpon receipt, the vulnerable component executes the unserialize() function on the malicious payload, prompting PHP to instantiate the serialized objects and automatically trigger magic methods such as __wakeup() or __destruct().\nThese magic methods execute attacker-controlled logic, chaining method calls across different classes to achieve unintended system behavior.\nNetwork exposure is present via standard web interfaces exposed by the WordPress installation utilizing the affected plugin.\nDepending on the classes loaded in the PHP environment during the attack, post-exploitation impact can range from complete system compromise via remote code execution to unauthorized access to sensitive database contents through secondary exploitation vectors triggered by the object injection."
}