Executive Summary

CVE-2025-67996 is a high-priority PHP Object Injection vulnerability affecting the WordPress Nestin Theme versions prior to 1.2.6.

This vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to perform PHP Object Injection, which means they can inject malicious objects into the application.

If a suitable Property Oriented Programming (POP) chain is available, this can lead to severe impacts such as code injection, SQL injection, path traversal, denial of service, and other critical issues.

The vulnerability falls under the OWASP Top 10 category A3: Injection.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can have severe impacts including:

• Code injection, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
• SQL injection, potentially compromising the database and exposing sensitive data.
• Path traversal, which can allow attackers to access unauthorized files on the server.
• Denial of service, potentially making the affected website or service unavailable.

Because the vulnerability can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers, it poses a significant risk to the security and availability of affected WordPress sites.

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Compliance Impact

I don't know

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability affects WordPress sites using the Nestin Theme versions prior to 1.2.6 and involves PHP Object Injection. Detection typically involves identifying if the vulnerable theme version is in use.

You can check the version of the Nestin Theme installed on your WordPress site by using WP-CLI commands such as:

• wp theme list --status=active
• wp theme get nestin --field=version

Additionally, monitoring web server logs for suspicious requests attempting PHP Object Injection payloads or unusual serialized data in POST requests may help detect exploitation attempts.

Patchstack has issued mitigation rules to block attacks until the theme is updated, which can also be used as detection mechanisms in intrusion detection systems.

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Mitigation Strategies

[{'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'The immediate and most effective mitigation step is to update the Nestin Theme to version 1.2.6 or later, where the vulnerability has been patched.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': "Until the update can be applied, applying Patchstack's mitigation rules to block attack attempts is strongly recommended."}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Additionally, monitoring and restricting suspicious input that could lead to PHP Object Injection, such as serialized PHP objects in requests, can help reduce risk.'}] [1]

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