Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (KAL1776155151)
The details regarding individual company incidents & reports gives you full view from every side.
Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of Kali Linux's Vulnerability and lateral movement inside company's environment.
- Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
- How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
- How this cyber incident impacts Kali Linux Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
- Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.
Full Incident Analysis Transcript
In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Kali Linux breach identified under incident ID KAL1776155151.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Kali Linux's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kali-linux, the number of followers: 0, the industry type: IT Services and IT Consulting and the number of employees: 341 employees
After the initial compromise, the video explains how Rankiteo's incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score. The incident score before the incident was 827 and after the incident was 825 with a difference of -2 which is could be a good indicator of the severity and impact of the incident.
In the next step of the video, we will analyze in more details the incident and the impact it had on Kali Linux and their customers.
On 20 March 2026, Kali Forms (WordPress Plugin) disclosed Remote Code Execution (RCE) issues under the banner "Critical Kali Forms WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild".
A severe Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Kali Forms, a popular WordPress plugin with over 10,000 active installations, has been actively exploited following its public disclosure.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting WordPress websites using Kali Forms (versions ≤ 2.4.9), and exposing Potential data theft.
In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Firewall rules to block exploit attempts, and began remediation that includes Patch released (Kali Forms 2.4.10), and stakeholders are being briefed through Public disclosure and advisories.
The case underscores how Ongoing, teams are taking away lessons such as Importance of timely patching and input validation in WordPress plugins to prevent RCE vulnerabilities, and recommending next steps like Update Kali Forms to version 2.4.10 or later immediately. Implement firewall rules to block exploit attempts. Monitor for suspicious activity, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Public disclosure and patch advisories.
Finally, we try to match the incident with the MITRE ATT&CK framework to see if there is any correlation between the incident and the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a knowledge base of techniques and sub-techniques that are used to describe the tactics and procedures of cyber adversaries. It is a powerful tool for understanding the threat landscape and for developing effective defense strategies.
MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis
Rankiteo's analysis has identified several MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques associated with this incident, each with varying levels of confidence based on available evidence. Under the Initial Access tactic, the analysis identified Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including severe Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Kali Forms, and exploited via manipulated form submissions to admin-ajax.php. Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code, and pHP function injection via placeholders (e.g., entryCounter) and Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059) with moderate to high confidence (85%), with evidence including execute arbitrary code on vulnerable websites, and malicious PHP function names executed via call_user_func(). Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control (T1548.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating forcing wp_set_auth_cookie() to bypass authentication and gain admin access. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating bypass authentication and gain admin access via wp_set_auth_cookie() and Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating unauthenticated exploitation via manipulated form submissions. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Steal Application Access Token (T1552.006) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating forcing wp_set_auth_cookie() to bypass authentication. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including potential data theft, and data exfiltration mentioned as impact. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating malware deployment mentioned as operational impact and Data Manipulation: Stored Data Manipulation (T1565.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating full site takeovers, malware deployment. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- Kali Linux Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/kali-linux/incident/KAL1776155151
- Kali Linux CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/kali-linux
- Kali Linux Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/kal1776155151-kali-forms-vulnerability-march-2026/
- Kali Linux CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/kali-linux/history
- Kali Linux CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://thecyberexpress.com/kali-forms-vulnerability-wordpress-plugin/
- Rankiteo A.I CyberSecurity Rating methodology: https://www.rankiteo.com/Images/rankiteo_algo.pdf
- Rankiteo TPRM Scoring methodology: https://static.rankiteo.com/model/rankiteo_tprm_methodology.pdf