CVE-2025-13374 — CRITICAL (CVSS 9.8) AI Security Vulnerability

CISO Take

CVE-2025-13374 is a critical unauthenticated RCE vulnerability in the Kalrav AI Agent WordPress plugin — any site running version ≤2.3.3 is fully exposed with zero prerequisites for exploitation. An attacker can upload a PHP web shell and achieve full server compromise in under five minutes, with a public PoC already available on GitHub. Immediately disable or remove the plugin; if the server has been internet-exposed since January 2025, treat it as potentially compromised and rotate all AI API keys stored on that host.

Severity & Risk

CVSS 3.1

9.8 / 10

EPSS

N/A

KEV Status

Not in KEV

Sophistication

Trivial

Recommended Action

1. IMMEDIATE: Enumerate all WordPress installations with kalrav-ai-agent plugin ≤2.3.3 across your environment. 2. DISABLE or REMOVE the plugin — no patch is available; do not wait. 3. SCAN webroot and upload directories for recently created .php, .phtml, .phar, or .cgi files (check last 60 days minimum). 4. AUDIT server logs for POST requests to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with action=kalrav_upload_file — any hit is a confirmed exploitation attempt. 5. ROTATE all AI API keys stored on the affected server (OpenAI, Anthropic, database credentials, Stripe keys). 6. If compromise is confirmed, treat server as fully owned and perform fresh OS-level deployment. 7. As a temporary WAF control if removal is not immediately possible, block multipart/form-data POST requests to the vulnerable AJAX action endpoint.

Classification

Code Execution Auth Bypass Data Extraction Plugin Agent API AML.T0010.001 - AI Software AML.T0037 - Data from Local System AML.T0049 - Exploit Public-Facing Application AML.T0050 - Command and Scripting Interpreter AML.T0053 - AI Agent Tool Invocation AML.T0072 - Reverse Shell AML.T0081 - Modify AI Agent Configuration AML.T0083 - Credentials from AI Agent Configuration

Compliance Impact

This CVE is relevant to:

EU AI Act

Article 15 - Accuracy, robustness and cybersecurity

ISO 42001

A.6.2 - AI system security A.6.2.6 - AI system security and resilience A.8.4 - AI system acquisition, development and maintenance

NIST AI RMF

MANAGE 2.2 - Mechanisms are in place to respond to and recover from incidents MANAGE-2.2 - Mechanisms are in place and applied to sustain the value of deployed AI systems MAP 2.1 - Scientific findings and organizational risks are identified and used

OWASP LLM Top 10

LLM07 - Insecure Plugin Design LLM08 - Excessive Agency

Technical Details

NVD Description

The Kalrav AI Agent plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary file uploads due to missing file type validation in the kalrav_upload_file AJAX action in all versions up to, and including, 2.3.3. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to upload arbitrary files on the affected site's server which may make remote code execution possible.

Exploitation Scenario

An adversary uses WPScan or Shodan to identify WordPress sites running the Kalrav AI Agent plugin. With a single unauthenticated HTTP POST to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=kalrav_upload_file, they upload a PHP web shell — no extension validation means any filename works. They browse to the uploaded file URL to gain interactive command execution. Within minutes they extract OpenAI/Anthropic API keys from wp-config.php and server environment variables, dump the WordPress database for user PII, establish persistence via a cron-based reverse shell, and pivot to internal AI services reachable from the server. The full chain requires no credentials, no AI/ML knowledge, and under five minutes of effort.

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-434 Primary

CVSS Vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Timeline

Published

January 24, 2026

Last Modified

January 26, 2026

First Seen

January 24, 2026