CVE-2025-53243
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedDeserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in emarket-design Employee Directory – Staff Listing & Team Directory Plugin for WordPress employee-directory allows Object Injection.This issue affects Employee Directory – Staff Listing & Team Directory Plugin for WordPress: from n/a through <= 4.5.5.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceThis is a PHP Object Injection vulnerability in the emarket-design Employee Directory plugin for WordPress. The plugin deserializes untrusted data (likely via PHP's unsafe unserialize() function), allowing attackers to inject malicious PHP objects that can potentially execute arbitrary code, read sensitive data, or perform other attacks depending on available 'magic methods' in the plugin or WordPress environment.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify if emarket-design Employee Directory plugin is installedIn WordPress admin, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins. Look for 'Employee Directory' by 'emarket-design' and note the installed version number.Affected if Plugin is installed and version is within affected range or unpatched
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Locate PHP files containing unserialize() callsAccess the plugin directory via FTP or file manager (wp-content/plugins/employee-directory or similar). Search all .php files for the string 'unserialize('.Affected if Any unserialize() call is found in plugin PHP files
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Determine if unserialize() processes user inputExamine each unserialize() call found. Check if it receives data from $_GET, $_POST, $_REQUEST, cookies, or database fields that could contain user-supplied values.Affected if unserialize() receives data from any user-controlled source without validation
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Check if the plugin processes external/serialized dataReview AJAX handlers, form processing code, and any endpoints that accept and process data. Look for functions that accept and unserialize input from requests.Affected if Plugin accepts and unserialize()s data from external sources without sanitization
You are affected if the emarket-design Employee Directory plugin is installed and contains unserialize() calls that process untrusted/user-supplied input.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpdate to a patched version of the plugin when available. If no patch exists, locate and remove all unserialize() calls on user-supplied input, replacing with safe serialization methods like json_encode/json_decode.
- Consultation6.0 h
- Implementation12.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $8,448.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-53243 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-53243 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data