A security advisory was issued for the AI Engine WordPress plugin, installed on over 100,000 websites, the fourth one this month. Rated 8.8, this vulnerability enables attackers with only subscriber-level authentication to upload malicious files when the REST API is enabled.
AI Engine Plugin: Fifth Vulnerability In 2025
This is the fourth vulnerability discovered in the AI Engine plugin in July, following the first one of the year discovered in June, making a total of five vulnerabilities discovered in the plugin so far in 2025. There were nine vulnerabilities discovered in 2024, one of which was rated 9.8 because it enabled unauthenticated attackers to upload malicious files, plus another rated 9.1 that also enabled arbitrary uploads.
Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary File Upload
The latest vulnerability enables authenticated file uploads. What makes this exploit more dangerous is that it requires only subscriber-level authentication for an attacker to take advantage of the security weakness. That isn’t as bad as a vulnerability that doesn’t require authentication, but it’s still rated 8.8 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Wordfence describes the vulnerability as being due to missing file type validation in a function related to the REST API in versions 2.9.3 and 2.9.4.
File type validation is a security measure typically used within WordPress to make sure that the content of a file matches the type of file being uploaded to the website.
According to Wordfence:
“This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to upload arbitrary files on the affected site’s server when the REST API is enabled, which may make remote code execution possible.”
Users of the AI Engine plugin are recommended updating their plugin to the latest version, 2.9.5, or a newer version.
The plugin changelog for version 2.9.5 shares what was updated:
“Fix: Resolved a security issue related to SSRF by validating URL schemes in audio transcription and sanitizing REST API parameters to prevent API key misuse.
Fix: Corrected a critical security vulnerability that allowed unauthorized file uploads by adding strict file type validation to prevent PHP execution.”
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Jiri Hera