CVE-2026-96561: tigroumeow ai engine – the chatbot, ai framework & mcp for wordpress Cross-site Scripting

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-96561 is a high (CVSS 7.2) Cross-site Scripting vulnerability in tigroumeow ai engine – the chatbot, ai framework & mcp for wordpress. EPSS estimates a 0.33% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 24.6% of scored vulnerabilities. Fixed in 3.8.1.

Timeline

1. 01-10-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 01-10-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

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.

• CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.