Description
The EmailKit plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Arbitrary File Read in all versions up to and including 1.6.5. This is due to a flawed path traversal validation in the create_template() method of the CheckForm class, where realpath() is called on the allowed base directory (wp-content/uploads/emailkit/templates/) which may not exist, causing it to return false. In PHP 8.x, strpos($real_path, false) implicitly converts false to an empty string, and strpos() with an empty needle always returns 0, causing the check strpos(...) !== 0 to evaluate to false and bypassing the path validation entirely. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Author-level access and above, to read arbitrary files from the server, including sensitive files such as wp-config.php, by supplying an absolute path to the emailkit-editor-template REST API parameter.
References10
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admi…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admi…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admi…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admi…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&repo…
- www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ae58e5b0-b587…
Metrics
- CVSS 3.1
-
6.5
MEDIUM
Score source: CNA
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N - EPSS — exploit probability
- 1% percentile: 48 · as of 13 November 2026
- CWE
- CWE-22
Could this be exploited in your environment?
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