🔥 CODE RED • CVSS 10.0 • RCE

CRITICAL 10.0 ALERT: Flowise RCE Flaw (CVE-2025-61913) Allows Attackers Arbitrary File Write and Full System Takeover

By CyberDudeBivash • October 09, 2025 • V6 “Leviathan” Deep Dive

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Disclosure: This is an urgent security advisory for AI developers, DevOps, and security professionals. It contains affiliate links to relevant security solutions. Your support helps fund our independent research.

Definitive Guide: Table of Contents

Part 1: The Executive Briefing — The Crisis of a CVSS 10.0 in the AI Stack

This is a CODE RED alert for all organizations using the popular open-source LLM application builder, **FlowiseAI**. A critical, **CVSS 10.0** unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability, tracked as **CVE-2025-61913**, has been discovered, and a public Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit is now available. This is a “game over” vulnerability of the highest possible severity. Any internet-facing, unpatched FlowiseAI instance can be instantly and completely taken over by a remote attacker.

Business Impact:

A compromised FlowiseAI server is a catastrophic security failure. The impact includes:

**Theft of Proprietary AI Models:** Attackers can steal your custom-trained AI models and the sensitive data they were trained on.
**Theft of Cloud Credentials:** The server running FlowiseAI often has highly privileged access keys to your cloud environment (AWS, Azure, GCP) and to third-party AI APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic).
**Network Pivot Point:** The compromised server becomes a trusted beachhead inside your network, from which attackers can launch a full-scale ransomware attack.

Part 2: Technical Deep Dive — The Path Traversal Kill Chain

The Flaw: Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Write via Path Traversal

The vulnerability is a classic but devastating **path traversal** in a file upload API endpoint. The FlowiseAI server fails to properly sanitize user-supplied filenames, allowing an attacker to use `../` sequences to “escape” the intended upload directory and write a file anywhere on the server’s filesystem.

The Kill Chain:

**Scanning:** Attackers are using automated scanners to find all internet-exposed FlowiseAI instances.
**The Exploit:** The attacker sends a simple, unauthenticated POST request to the vulnerable file upload endpoint. The filename in the request is crafted with a path traversal payload, for example: `../../../../var/www/html/backdoor.js`. The file content is a malicious JavaScript webshell.
**The RCE:** The FlowiseAI server, running on NodeJS, saves the file to the webroot. The attacker then accesses `http://victim.com/backdoor.js`, which executes their webshell and gives them a command prompt on the server with the privileges of the Node process.

Part 3: The Defender’s Playbook — A Guide to Patching, Hardening, and Hunting

Given the public exploit and active scanning, your response must be immediate.

1. PATCH IMMEDIATELY or TAKE THE INSTANCE OFFLINE

This is your highest and most urgent priority. The FlowiseAI project has released an emergency security patch. You must update your instance immediately. If you cannot patch right away, you must take the server completely offline or use a firewall to block all public access to it.

2. Harden Your Deployment (Best Practice)

A tool like FlowiseAI, designed for development and experimentation, should **NEVER** be exposed directly to the public internet without multiple layers of security. It must be placed behind a firewall and an authenticating reverse proxy.

3. Hunt for Compromise (Assume Breach)

You must assume you have been targeted. Your SOC team must hunt for:

**Suspicious Web Logs:** Scrutinize your web server access logs for any POST requests to file upload endpoints that contain `../` sequences.
**The Golden Signal (EDR):** The most high-fidelity indicator of compromise is your NodeJS process (`node`) spawning anomalous child processes like `bash`, `sh`, `cmd.exe`, or `powershell.exe`. This should never happen.
**File System Audit:** Scan your web server directories and other system folders for any recently created, suspicious `.js`, `.php`, or other script files.

Detect the Post-Exploitation Behavior: A modern **XDR platform** is essential for detecting the post-exploit TTPs. It can see that your trusted NodeJS process is behaving maliciously (spawning a shell) and automatically terminate the attack chain.

Part 4: The Strategic Takeaway — The Unmanaged Risk of “Shadow AI” Infrastructure

For CISOs, this incident is a critical case study in the danger of **”Shadow AI”** infrastructure. The rapid, democratized adoption of open-source AI tools means that your developers and data scientists are likely spinning up powerful, internet-facing servers that are completely outside the visibility and control of your central IT and security teams. A single, unpatched FlowiseAI instance, deployed by an enthusiastic but untrained developer, can create a catastrophic entry point into your entire organization.

This highlights the urgent need for a comprehensive **AI Governance and Security program**. You must have:

**Visibility:** A program to discover all AI-related infrastructure and applications being used in your environment.
**Policy:** A clear policy for the secure deployment of these tools.
**Guardrails:** Technical controls (like a secure cloud landing zone and CSPM tools) to enforce this policy automatically.

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About the Author

CyberDudeBivash is a cybersecurity strategist with 15+ years in AI security, DevSecOps, and application security, advising CISOs across APAC. [Last Updated: October 09, 2025]

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