Executive Summary

CVE-2026-40753 is a high-priority PHP Object Injection vulnerability found in the WordPress EasyMeals Theme versions 1.5.1 and below.

This vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers—meaning they do not need prior access—to inject malicious PHP objects.

Exploitation can lead to code injection, SQL injection, path traversal, denial of service, and other malicious activities if a suitable POP (Property Oriented Programming) chain exists.

The vulnerability is categorized under the OWASP Top 10 category A3: Injection and has a CVSS severity score of 8.1, indicating a high risk.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can have severe impacts including unauthorized code execution, which can compromise the entire website.

Attackers could perform SQL injection to access or manipulate sensitive data, execute path traversal to access restricted files, or cause denial of service to disrupt website availability.

Because the vulnerability is unauthenticated, it can be exploited remotely without any credentials, increasing the risk of mass exploitation campaigns targeting thousands of websites.

Users of the affected EasyMeals theme versions are strongly advised to update to version 1.6 immediately or apply mitigation rules to block attacks.

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Mitigation Strategies

The vulnerability affects EasyMeals WordPress Theme versions 1.5.1 and below. The immediate step to mitigate this vulnerability is to update the EasyMeals theme to version 1.6 or later, where the issue has been patched.

Until the update can be applied, it is strongly advised to implement the mitigation rule provided by Patchstack to block attacks exploiting this vulnerability.

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Compliance Impact

The vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to perform code injection, SQL injection, path traversal, denial of service, and other malicious activities. Such exploits can lead to unauthorized access, data breaches, and service disruptions.

These consequences can negatively impact compliance with common standards and regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, which require protection of sensitive data and maintaining system integrity and availability.

Failure to patch this vulnerability or mitigate its risks could result in violations of these regulations due to potential data exposure or service compromise.

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