Executive brief
The Kelly Young theme for WordPress is vulnerable to a security flaw that allows unauthorized individuals to access sensitive files on the web server. By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker could potentially view configuration files containing database credentials or other private system information. This could lead to a full takeover of the website and its associated data. At the time of this report, no official patch has been released by the developer.
Technical details
A Local File Inclusion (LFI) vulnerability exists in the Kelly Young WordPress theme (versions <= 1.1.0) due to improper control of filenames used in PHP include/require statements (CWE-98). An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this by sending specially crafted requests to include local files from the server. Successful exploitation can lead to the disclosure of sensitive information, such as the wp-config.php file containing database credentials, or potentially remote code execution if the attacker can upload or influence the contents of a local file. The attack vector is network-based with high complexity and requires no user interaction. As of the advisory date, no official patch is available, though third-party mitigation rules have been proposed.
Affected products
- ThemeREX Kelly Young <= 1.1.0
Timeline
- 2025-10-31: other: Vulnerability reported by researcher Bonds
- 2026-05-26: advisory: Patchstack published vulnerability details
- 2026-06-17: disclosed: CVE published to NVD