The String locator plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to PHP Object Injection in all versions up to, and including, 2.6.6 via deserialization of untrusted input in the 'recursive_unserialize_replace' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject a PHP Object. No known POP chain is present in the vulnerable software. If a POP chain is present via an additional plugin or theme installed on the target system, it could allow the attacker to delete arbitrary files, retrieve sensitive data, or execute code. An administrator must perform a search and replace action to trigger the exploit.

The String locator plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via the 'sql-column' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 2.6.5 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user into performing an action such as clicking on a link. This required WP_DEBUG to be enabled in order to be exploited.

The String Locator plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to deserialization of untrusted input via the 'string-locator-path' parameter in versions up to, and including 2.5.0. This makes it possible for unauthenticated users to call files using a PHAR wrapper, granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link, that will deserialize and call arbitrary PHP Objects that can be used to perform a variety of malicious actions granted a POP chain is also present. It also requires that the attacker is successful in uploading a file with the serialized payload.

The String locator WordPress plugin before 2.5.0 does not properly validate the path of the files to be searched, allowing high privilege users such as admin to query arbitrary files on the web server via a path traversal vector. Furthermore, due to a flaw in the search, allowing a pattern to be provided, which will be used to output the relevant matches from the matching file, all content of the file can be disclosed.