PraisonAI Authentication Bypass via PRAISONAI_CALL_AUTH=disabled

A critical authentication bypass exists in PraisonAI, affecting versions prior to 4.6.61. The vulnerability stems from an undocumented "feature" where setting the PRAISONAI_CALL_AUTH=disabled environment variable completely deactivates authentication for the /api/v1/agents/{id}/invoke endpoint. This misconfiguration is highly likely to be present in production Docker and Docker Compose deployments due to the application's own error messages explicitly advertising this bypass as a convenience option. Attackers can leverage this to gain full unauthenticated access to agent invocation functionalities, enabling them to trigger any registered agent and potentially execute arbitrary actions depending on the agent's configured tools, leading to severe compromise of the host system or connected services.

Attack Chain

1. Reconnaissance: An attacker identifies an internet-facing PraisonAI instance, typically deployed via Docker or Docker Compose.
2. Vulnerability Identification: The attacker attempts to interact with the /api/v1/agents/{id}/invoke endpoint without authentication, potentially observing error messages that suggest setting PRAISONAI_CALL_AUTH=disabled to bypass auth, confirming the misconfiguration.
3. Unauthenticated API Call: The attacker constructs a POST request to /api/v1/agents/{agent_id}/invoke with a malicious payload, targeting a known or guessed agent ID, and sends it to the vulnerable PraisonAI instance without providing any authentication credentials.
4. Agent Triggering: Due to the PRAISONAI_CALL_AUTH=disabled setting, the PraisonAI server bypasses all authentication checks and processes the unauthenticated request, triggering the specified agent.
5. Execution via Agent Tools: The activated agent, configured with specific tools (e.g., shell access, Python interpreter, API keys), executes arbitrary actions as dictated by the attacker's payload injected via the invoke endpoint.
6. Impact: This unauthenticated execution leads to consequences such as data exfiltration, remote code execution, system compromise, or further lateral movement within the compromised environment.

Impact

The primary impact of this vulnerability is full unauthenticated access to the PraisonAI agent invocation API. If exploited, an attacker can trigger any registered agent on the server without needing valid credentials. This means that if an agent has been configured with access to sensitive systems or functionalities (e.g., shell command execution, database access, cloud API keys), the attacker can leverage these capabilities to execute arbitrary actions. This can result in data exfiltration, privilege escalation, remote code execution, or complete compromise of the underlying server and connected resources. The ease of exploitation and potential for severe consequences makes this a critical security concern for organizations running affected PraisonAI versions.

Recommendation

• Immediately update PraisonAI instances to version 4.6.61 or newer to remediate the vulnerability.
• Review all Dockerfiles, Docker Compose configurations, and environment variable settings for PraisonAI deployments to ensure PRAISONAI_CALL_AUTH=disabled is not present, or is explicitly set to enabled.
• Deploy the provided Detect PraisonAI Unauthenticated Agent Invocation Sigma rule to your SIEM to monitor for exploitation attempts against the /api/v1/agents/{id}/invoke endpoint.
• Deploy the provided Detect PraisonAI PRAISONAI_CALL_AUTH=disabled Misconfiguration Sigma rule to your EDR/SIEM to identify systems misconfigured with the vulnerable environment variable.
• Implement strict network access controls to limit access to PraisonAI instances, particularly the /api/v1/agents/{id}/invoke API endpoint, to only trusted internal networks or specific services.