CVE-2026-96561 Cross-site scripting in AI Engine – The Chatbot, AI Framework & MCP for WordPress
Unauthenticated attackers can inject scripts into the WordPress dashboard via a complex log injection chain, potentially compromising administrator accounts.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-96561?
CVE-2026-96561 is a high-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in tigroumeow AI Engine – The Chatbot, AI Framework & MCP for WordPress, published on 1 Oct 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The AI Engine – The Chatbot, AI Framework & MCP for WordPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 3.8.0 This is due to a chain of missing input neutralization and output escaping across the /mwai-ui/v1/chats/submit REST endpoint, the PHP error-log parser (MeowKit_MWAI_Helpers::php_error_logs), the Advisor task (Meow_MWAI_Modules_Advisor::run_advisor), and the Advisor dashboard widget (advisor_metabox): the server-parameter denylist in chat_submit strips only exact key names such as 'model' while convert_keys() later canonicalizes 'model_' back to 'model', allowing an unauthenticated caller to place an attacker-controlled string (including CR/LF) into $query->model; final_checks() throws an Exception whose message embeds that raw string, and the non-streaming, non-admin catch branch writes it to the PHP error log unmodified — creating a forged log line that the plugin's own parser subsequently returns as recent PHP-error content; run_advisor() then appends that content verbatim to the AI prompt (indirect prompt injection — CWE-1427), the returned JSON is stored in the mwai_advisor_data option with no schema validation or HTML sanitization, and advisor_metabox() concatenates the resulting 'title' and 'description' values directly into the WordPress dashboard widget without esc_html(), wp_kses(), or equivalent escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever an administrator accesses the WordPress dashboard.
Weakness: CWE-79
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-96561?
How do I fix CVE-2026-96561?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-96561 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Escape output for the context it lands in and set a strict Content Security Policy. Upgrading the affected component is the real fix. More about Cross-site scripting.
Is CVE-2026-96561 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-96561 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-h282-rvgq-85qj.