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Unlock with Pro - from £29/user/moDetect Formie Hidden Field Default Server-Side Template Injection (CVE-2026-52889) in Elastic Security
Detects exploitation attempts against CVE-2026-52889, a Server-Side Template Injection (SSTI, CWE-1336) vulnerability in the Formie plugin (verbb/formie) for Craft CMS. The vulnerability exists in how Formie processes 'default value' expressions for Hidden form fields, allowing an unauthenticated or low-privileged attacker to inject Twig template syntax that is evaluated server-side, potentially leading to remote code execution. Affects verbb/formie < 3.1.27. Detection focuses on Twig/Craft template injection payload patterns in form submission requests, anomalous POST bodies to Formie submission endpoints, and resulting web shell / RCE indicators (process spawning from PHP-FPM/Craft, outbound connections, file writes to web root).
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Initial Access Execution
Elastic Detection Query
network where event.category == "network" and destination.port in (80, 443, 8080) and
http.request.method == "POST" and url.path : ("*actions/formie*", "*formie*") and
(url.query : ("*%7B%7B*", "*{{*", "*_self.env*", "*system(*", "*proc_open(*") or http.request.body.content : ("*{{*", "*_self.env*", "*proc_open(*"))Identifies HTTP POST traffic to Formie form endpoints with Twig SSTI syntax embedded in the query string or request body, indicating CVE-2026-52889 exploitation.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- Approved vulnerability scanning tools generating SSTI-like test strings
- CMS developers testing Twig expressions through the same public endpoint in a non-prod environment
- Web application firewalls or proxies rewriting URLs in a way that mimics template syntax
Other platforms for CVE-2026-52889
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 3 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1Formie Hidden Field SSTI Payload Submission
Expected signal: Web server access log entry recording a POST to /actions/formie/submissions/submit containing the Twig SSTI payload string in the request body.
- Test 2Formie SSTI to Command Execution Simulation
Expected signal: EDR/auditd process creation events showing 'bash' spawned as a child of a process running under the www-data (or equivalent web server) user, executing 'id', 'whoami', and 'uname -a'.
- Test 3Formie Malicious Webshell Drop Simulation
Expected signal: File integrity monitoring / EDR file-creation event for a new .php file written under the web root by the web server process user shortly after a Formie form submission.
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