Executive brief
WPBot is a WordPress plugin that integrates with AI providers like Gemini, Grok, and OpenRouter to power chatbot features on websites. The plugin fails to verify user identity or permission on certain API endpoints, allowing attackers to send requests to the AI providers using the site owner's stored API keys, incurring charges on the owner's account.
Technical details
The vulnerability is a broken access control (CWE-284) affecting multiple AJAX actions registered on the unauthenticated hook without nonce or capability checks. Affected actions (grok_response, and others) relay user prompts to third-party AI providers signed with stored API credentials. An attacker can send unauthenticated POST requests to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with any prompt text, triggering API calls that consume provider credits. No authentication, nonce, or prior user interaction is required; the only prerequisite is that the site administrator has configured at least one affected provider's API key (a common configuration for active WPBot installations). The vulnerability was patched in version 8.5.7.
Affected products
- WPBot WPBot before 8.5.7
Timeline
- 2026-09-10: disclosed
- 2026-09-10: patched: Fixed in version 8.5.7