Recon Skills is a pack of security-testing skills covering reconnaissance, web applications, APIs, authentication, vulnerability validation, cloud infrastructure, and reporting. Security professionals use it for authorized assessments of systems they own or have written permission to test. The catalogue entries are individual skills from the pack.
Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add uphiago/recon-skills --skill xmlrpc-exploitationgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/uphiago/recon-skillsWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/xmlrpc-exploitation)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/xmlrpc-exploitation"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/xmlrpc-exploitation/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/xmlrpc-exploitation"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/xmlrpc-exploitation.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
SkillSpector: 11 findings, up to critical
These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →
- critical YARA Match · line 279 YARA rule matched a known webshell pattern (PHP, Python, JSP, or ASPX webshell).Fix: Remove the webshell code immediately. Webshells provide unauthorized remote command execution. Audit the skill for additional backdoors or persistence mechanisms.
- high Supply Chain · line 97 Remote code is downloaded and executed. This bypasses code review and could introduce malicious code.Fix: Avoid downloading and executing remote scripts. Use trusted packages from PyPI/npm. If remote fetch is required, verify checksums and use HTTPS.
- high YARA Match · line 113 YARA rule matched a hack tool or exploit indicator (offensive tools, reconnaissance, privilege escalation, or exploit frameworks).Fix: Remove offensive tool references and exploit code. Legitimate agent skills should not contain penetration testing tools, exploit frameworks, or reconnaissance utilities.
- high Supply Chain · line 115 Remote code is downloaded and executed. This bypasses code review and could introduce malicious code.Fix: Avoid downloading and executing remote scripts. Use trusted packages from PyPI/npm. If remote fetch is required, verify checksums and use HTTPS.
- high Privilege Escalation · line 331 Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
- medium Data Exfiltration · line 44 Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
- medium Data Exfiltration · line 82 Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
- medium Data Exfiltration · line 97 Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
- medium Data Exfiltration · line 115 Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
- medium Data Exfiltration · line 241 Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
- medium Data Exfiltration · line 281 Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00021 | $0.04459 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00010 | $0.02230 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00004 | $0.00892 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00446 |
Grade A, and why
xmlrpc-exploitation scanned grade A with 2 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Makes network callslowCapability
Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.
compatibility: Requires curl, python3 Runs shell commandslowCapability
Expected in a hook, worth knowing in a rule or an instructions file.
subprocess.run(["curl", "-sk", "-X", "POST", How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 341 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
XMLRPC Exploitation Skill
5-phase exploitation pipeline for WordPress XMLRPC endpoints. Covers bulk detection, method enumeration, SSRF via pingback.ping, amplified brute force via system.multicall (1000x amplification), and RCE via wp.uploadFile when open registration is present. XMLRPC is open on ~52% of WordPress targets found via wp-mass-recon.
When to Use
wp-mass-recondetected XMLRPC returning HTTP 200 on POST.- Target has WordPress with open registration (chain: upload → webshell → RCE).
- Need a brute-force amplification vector for WordPress credentials.
- Probing for internal SSRF via
pingback.pingto cloud metadata endpoints.
Prerequisites
terminalwith curl.- Target has confirmed XMLRPC endpoint (
/xmlrpc.phpreturns 200 on POST withdemo.sayHello). - For RCE chain: target must have open registration or another file upload path.
- For SSRF chain: need a Collaborator/Burp Collaborator endpoint or internal target IPs.
How to Run
# Phase 1: Bulk detection on target list
while read -r domain; do
code=$(curl -sk -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" --max-time 10 --connect-timeout 10 -X POST "https://$domain/xmlrpc.php" \
-d '<?xml version="1.0"?><methodCall><methodName>demo.sayHello</methodName></methodCall>')
[[ "$code" == "200" ]] && echo "OPEN: $domain"
sleep 0.3
done < targets.txt
# Phase 2: Deep method enumeration
curl --max-time 30 --connect-timeout 10 -sk -X POST "https://TARGET/xmlrpc.php" \
-H "Content-Type: text/xml" \
-d '<?xml version="1.0"?><methodCall><methodName>system.listMethods</methodName></methodCall>'
Quick Reference
| Method | Capability | Severity |
|---|---|---|
demo.sayHello |
Confirms XMLRPC is alive | Info |
system.listMethods |
Enumerate all available methods | Info |
system.multicall |
Execute multiple methods in ONE request | Critical — 1000x brute force amplification |
pingback.ping |
SSRF — server makes outbound HTTP request | High — probe internal network, IMDS |
wp.getUsers |
Enumerate WordPress users | Medium |
wp.getPosts |
List published posts | Low |
wp.uploadFile |
Upload file to media library | Critical — webshell when combined with open reg |
wp.getOptions |
Read WordPress options (siteurl, admin_email) | Medium |
wp.getPostStatusList |
Get post statuses | Low |
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 9d ago First seen · 341 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A 06eac1ce0084
xmlrpc-exploitation is a skill published in the GitHub repository uphiago/recon-skills (1,247 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 4,459 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 2 findings (makes network calls, runs shell commands). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
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