CVE-2025-26909

Hide My WP Ghost <= 5.4.01 - Unauthenticated Local File Inclusion

2025-03-19 00:00
Dimas Maulana

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.4.02
Affected Plugin
Hide My WP Ghost – Security & Firewall
Affected Version
<= 5.4.01
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
CVE
CVE-2025-26909
View all Hide My WP Ghost – Security & Firewall vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2025-26909 is a critical-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the Hide My WP Ghost WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.4.01. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 5.4.02; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2025, reported by Dimas Maulana.

Vulnerability Overview

The Hide My WP Ghost plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in versions up to, and including, 5.4.01. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to include and execute arbitrary files on the server, allowing the execution of any PHP code in those files. This can be used to bypass access controls, obtain sensitive data, or achieve code execution in cases where images and other “safe” file types can be uploaded and included.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-98: Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')

Hide My WP Ghost <= 5.4.01 carries this weakness at safe, and reaching it takes no account at all. PHP file inclusion means a path used by include or require is built from request data, so the file that gets executed is under the caller's influence.

Including an attacker-influenced file executes its contents, which is why this class is routinely chained with an upload or log-poisoning step to reach code execution. For Hide My WP Ghost the fix is 5.4.02: builds <= 5.4.01 are affected, anything from 5.4.02 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.4.02, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. Classes like this one can leave something behind, so the staged malware scanner is the second half: it looks for dropped files and modified code rather than for the request that created them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Hide My WP Ghost 5.4.02 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Scanner
  • Login Security

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-26909https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a003e922-d6c6-4f99-9b94-a3232d311677https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-26909

Related records

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