CVE-2025-13922

The Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager – AI Autotagger with OpenAI plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to time-based blind SQL Injection via the 'existing_terms_orderby' parameter in the AI preview AJAX endpoint in all versions up to, and including, 3.40.1. This is due to insufficient escaping on user-supplied parameters and lack of SQL query parameterization. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above who have AI metabox permissions, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database, cause performance degradation, or enable data inference through time-based techniques.

An attacker registers a free WordPress account or compromises a low-privileged Contributor credential (via credential stuffing or phishing). With AI metabox permissions enabled, they send crafted AJAX POST requests to `/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php` injecting a time-based payload into `existing_terms_orderby`: e.g., `name,(CASE WHEN (SUBSTRING((SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name='openai_api_key'),1,1)='s') THEN SLEEP(5) ELSE 0 END)`. By measuring response latency across thousands of automated requests, the attacker reconstructs database contents character by character — extracting wp_users password hashes, stored OpenAI API keys, Stripe keys, and any PII in the database. The extracted OpenAI key is then used for unauthorized inference at the victim's expense, or sold. Total time to extract a 32-character API key via automated tooling: under 30 minutes on a typical shared WordPress host.