Countdown & Clock <= 2.3.2 - Authenticated (Admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.3.3
- Affected Plugin
- Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock
- Affected Version
<= 2.3.2- CVSS
- 5.5Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2022-29420
At a glance
CVE-2022-29420 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.3.2. It carries a CVSS score of 5.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Admin level or above. The issue is fixed in version 2.3.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2022, reported by Jeong Wonjun.
Vulnerability Overview
Authenticated (admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Adam Skaat's Countdown & Clock plugin <= 2.3.2 at WordPress via &ycd-circle-countdown-before-countdown and &ycd-circle-countdown-after-countdown vulnerable parameters.
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.
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Reaching this weakness in Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance <= 2.3.2 takes an account at Admin level or above. Cross-site scripting happens when input from a request is written into a page without being escaped for the context it lands in, so the browser parses attacker-supplied text as markup or script.
Injected script runs with the privileges of whoever views the affected page, which is how these flaws turn into administrator session theft, silent account creation or persistent backdoors in page content. For Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance the fix is 2.3.3: builds <= 2.3.2 are affected, anything from 2.3.3 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.3.3, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Admin 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. None of that substitutes for the fix: Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance 2.3.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock
- 8.8CVE-2025-30841: Countdown & Clock <= 2.8.8 Remote Code Execution
CVE-2025-30841 - 8.1CVE-2025-2270: Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance Limited LFI
CVE-2025-2270 - 5.4CVE-2024-2017: Countdown Authenticated (Subscriber+) PHP Object
CVE-2024-2017 - 4.4CVE-2024-50516: Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance Stored XSS
CVE-2024-50516 - 3.8CVE-2022-29423: Countdown & Clock <= 2.3.2 Pro Features Lock Bypass
CVE-2022-29423
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