CVE-2026-16144

high

Description

The Kali Forms — Contact Form & Drag-and-Drop Builder plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to, and including, 2.4.20 via the _save_data function. This is due to insufficient validation of the 'thisPermalink' field value before it overwrites a trusted callable placeholder, allowing attacker-controlled strings to reach call_user_func() in _save_data(). This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute code on the server. Exploitation requires the target form to define a field with a name matching one of the reserved placeholder keys ('thisPermalink', 'entryCounter', or 'submission_link'), as check_if_placeholders_changed() only processes POST keys present in the form's field_type_map.

References

https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/9d692aff-8bb2-45bb-9caf-bc33d3ed5b10?source=cve

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3623024%40kali-forms&new=3623024%40kali-forms

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.20/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L976

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.20/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L90

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.20/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L277

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.20/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L172

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.20/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L1033

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.19/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L976

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.19/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L90

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.19/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L277

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.19/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L172

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/kali-forms/tags/2.4.19/Inc/Frontend/class-form-processor.php#L1033

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2026-08-01

Updated: 2026-08-01

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 7.6

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Severity: High

CVSS v3

Base Score: 8.1

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Severity: High