CVE-2026-54816

Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense <= 2.0.21 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Remote Code Execution

2026-06-17 00:00
Nguyen Ba Khanh

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.0.22
Affected Plugin
Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense
Affected Version
<= 2.0.21
CVSS
8.3High
Weakness type
CWE-94 · Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
CVE
CVE-2026-54816
View all Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2026-54816 is a high-severity Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in the Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.0.21. It carries a CVSS score of 8.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. The issue is fixed in version 2.0.22; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2026, reported by Nguyen Ba Khanh.

Vulnerability Overview

The Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to, and including, 2.0.21. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to execute code on the server.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, availability.

CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

Reaching this weakness in Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense <= 2.0.21 takes an account at Contributor level or above. Code injection means input from a request reaches a language construct that evaluates code, so the attacker's text is executed rather than treated as data.

The injected code runs with the web server's privileges, giving the attacker the same access to the database and filesystem as WordPress itself. For Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense the fix is 2.0.22: builds <= 2.0.21 are affected, anything from 2.0.22 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.0.22, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Contributor access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. Classes like this one can leave something behind, so the staged malware scanner is the second half: it looks for dropped files and modified code rather than for the request that created them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense 2.0.22 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Scanner
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-54816https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/5017c81f-91ee-421b-96db-c96eae56d032https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-54816

Related records

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