CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-8289 — Redirection for Contact Form 7 security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.5

The Redirection for Contact Form 7 plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to PHP Object Injection in all versions up to, and including, 3.2.4 via deserialization of untrusted input in the delete_associated_files function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject a PHP Object. This vulnerability may be exploited by unauthenticated attackers when a form is present on the site with a file upload action, and doesn't affect sites with PHP version > 8. This vulnerability also requires the 'Redirection For Contact Form 7 Extension - Create Post' extension to be installed and activated in order to be exploited. No known POP chain is present in the vulnerable software, which means this vulnerability has no impact unless another plugin or theme containing a POP chain is installed on the site. If a POP chain is present via an additional plugin or theme installed on the target system, it may allow the attacker to perform actions like delete arbitrary files, retrieve sensitive data, or execute code depending on the POP chain present. We confirmed there is a usable gadget in Contact Form 7 plugin that makes arbitrary file deletion possible when installed with this plugin. Give…

Severity
High
CVSS
7.5 (3.1)
Published
2025-08-20
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
php/wordpress
Weaknesses
CWE-502

Affected products

No browser-safe affected-product rows are available.

Matched remediation archetype

Unsafe deserialization and object reconstruction

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory serialization formats accepted from requests, queues, caches, files, cookies, and cross-service messages.
  • Trace whether untrusted input can select classes, types, callbacks, constructors, or object hooks during decoding.
  • Identify signing, schema validation, trust-boundary, and compatibility settings for each decoder.

Remediate safely

  • Replace native object deserialization with a data-only format and explicit schema validation.
  • If replacement is not immediate, use a safe decoder with a minimal type allowlist and disable polymorphic or executable hooks.
  • Update the affected library and add inert tests for unknown types, extra fields, malformed nesting, and unsigned data.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.