RCE in Bearsthemes Bears Backup

CVE-2025-5396

The Bears Backup plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to, and including, 2.0.0. This is due to the bbackup_ajax_handle() function not having a capability check, nor validating user supplied input passed directly to call_user_func(). This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute code on the server which can be leverage to inject backdoors or create new administrative user accounts to name a few things. On WordPress sites running the Alone theme versions 7.8.4 and older, this can be chained with CVE-2025-5394 to install the Bears Backup plugin and achieve the same impact.

Vulnerability class: RCE (Remote Code Execution)

EPSS: 0.007 (50.6th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-5396?
CVE-2025-5396 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Bearsthemes Bears Backup, classified under Code Injection. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2025-07-17.
How severe is CVE-2025-5396?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-5396 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.