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Exploit brokers pay $500k for WordPress RCEs. I found one with GPT5.6 and $25

Exploit brokers pay $500k for WordPress RCEs. I found one with GPT5.6 and $25

infosecau

Comments (197)

  • Zsfe510asG
    There is no evidence that $500k has been paid or would be paid for an exploit like this one.Given that the article says that prompts are modified like they are holy scripture, perhaps sell the prompt for $500k.The author works for https://www.assetnote.io/ , which has AI products for automated scanning.
  • progbits
    https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/commit/3a640e1c5e39aa...String concatenation SQL injection in the year 2026.
  • hmokiguess
    I am so done with FOMO writing. Sure man, you found one with $25. With $25 plus your entire industry domain specific knowledge of where to look, of how to probe, of what else you may have accumulated and collected over the years of working within this industry. Let's stop with the gambling narrative and the illusion that we are all missing out.
  • ahartmetz
    The surprising (and possibly untrue) thing is the high price of canned vulnerabilities. WordPress is known as the remote root shell with a blogging feature.
  • raesene9
    Interesting write-up and I do think LLM assisted/powered exploit disclosure is a real concern (I've been able to get models to create container breakouts from Linux LPEs relatively quickly).One thing I'm surprised about is that GPT-5.6 didn't block that prompt due to guardrails. My experience is that GPT-5.5 and up does not like offensive security work (similar to Opus 4.7+/Fable).I didn't notice it but I'd assume that the authors have some level of cyber approvals from OpenAI to relax the guardrails a bit.
  • secretslol
    One of my websites was hacked with this, luckily not one with any users at all.They did this:- Two admin accounts in the database.- plugin dir: wp-content/plugins/wp-core with remote command-execution web shell wp-core-[12 random chars].php- firewall.php backdoor in mu-plugins dir with admin on GET ?sergei- cache-seo-helper.php backdoor- fixer.php which renames the wordpress version number to one which is patched.I have decided to give up on Wordpress.
  • lillesvin
    I feel like I've seen plenty of non-AI, pre-2020 SAST tools catch SQLis like the one mentioned here, and if nothing else, then a code review ought to catch it. Is WordPress not using code reviews and/or SAST?
  • lexicality
    The author lost me at the last bit where they started using weird names for the posts. Why would you make one ID O and the other ID 0? Why single letters and not EMBED_01? Why seemingly random letters instead of ABCDEF? Does OCPDST stand for something?
  • barbazoo
    I'd expect the amount of money paid for exploits to go down then. It's inefficient to pay >$25 for an exploit that took $25 to make.
  • cromka
    This assumes those who'd pay $500k don't have the skill to use GTP5.6 for the same purpose themselves?
  • ifdefdebug
    > Is GPT5.6 Sol Superhuman?This is not a simple y/n question. Computers have been superhuman at playing chess for decades now. Reading this article, I guess they are superhuman at understanding code now as well.
  • throwitaway222
    Seems like exploit brokers can just buy a codex license and put the 500k towards finding all bugs in all software for the price of one bug
  • cadamsdotcom
    That was an incredible writeup! Chapeau to the author - thanks for taking the time to do a writeup.When Anthropic claimed Mythos chained 4 or 5 bugs to achieve sandbox escape and found bugs in core software, it sounded like bs. But here we are 2 months later seeing what they meant.Cybersecurity was always a hard sell; security flaws were invisible - by contrast a fence with a hole is visible to everyone - anyone can ignore the locked gate and walk through the fence hole. With cybersecurity a hole in the fence may go unnoticed for years, maybe forever.LLMs level the field. We will all benefit from more secure systems, a few people will get a lot of egg on their faces, and it will end the malpractice of underinvesting in software security to get a product out the door.
  • dzonga
    wordpress is so shitty - though it runs the majority of the web.people think PHP is shitty cz of Wordpress.at a certain point in time - people need to move to better ecosystems painful as that may be.
  • vavkamil
    This one is both awesome and scary. We are living in a black mirror episode, where one well-crafted LLM prompt can get you $500k or the ability to hack into 500M websites :)
  • anon
    undefined
  • j45
    I wonder if there could be a crowdfunding to harden Wordpress with the leading models, or some who might have access to something like a Mythos level.
  • _joel
    The "pro's buy out a company that has a massive add-on install base with the most non-technical users.
  • _superposition_
    The cost of business nowadays? At what point does it become apparent that in today's world software needs continuous pen testing and scanning? If you don't your attackers will.
  • tantalor
    Is this real? Or did they concoct this vulnerability just to write a blog post?I'm not seeing any mention where they report this to WP or the patch.
  • r1ch
    Does Sol allow this kind of research by default or is this a "look at me I'm on the cyber research allowlist" post?
  • mixtureoftakes
    What was the harness used? And yeah surprised about such prompts not being downright blocked, even with the cybersafety verification"
  • aussieguy1234
    So they spent the $25. But the real question here is did they get the $500K?
  • preetham_rangu
    Nice balance between practicality and ambition. Curious how it holds up with real-world scale.
  • jorisw
    RCE — Remote code execution
  • perarneng
    How do you find exploits without risking someone seeing your attempt and reporting you as a hacker? do you register first somewhere?
  • CodeCompost
    I like the idea of not crediting the person who posted the bug but to the LLM that found it. People who find exploits using LLMs should never get a reward or credit.
  • stared
    On another note - who needs WordPress in the age of Astro and LLMs?I mean, it's not a taunt, but a serious question - do people keep WordPress because it used to be the easiest solution to set up years ago, or are there still clear use cases where one can argue it's the best solution?
  • IshKebab
    Presumably they don't pay $500k anymore...
  • rvz
    Just like that, the 0-day black market is experiencing a mini black Monday.
  • koko443
    [dead]
  • supportm
    [flagged]
  • throw8394498383
    [flagged]
  • yellow_lead
    Can RCEs like this still be sold to exploit brokers like Zerodium? If so, how? Asking for a friend