DX Unanswered Comments <= 1.7 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via Settings Update
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.8
- Affected Plugin
- DX Unanswered Comments
- Affected Version
<= 1.7- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2026-4138
At a glance
CVE-2026-4138 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the DX Unanswered Comments WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.7. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2026, reported by afnaan.
Vulnerability Overview
The DX Unanswered Comments plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 1.7. This is due to missing nonce validation on the plugin's settings form in the dxuc-unanswered-comments-admin-page.php file. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to modify plugin settings (dxuc_authors_list and dxuc_comment_count) via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.
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 privileges on the target site.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Reaching this weakness in DX Unanswered Comments <= 1.7 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.
An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. For DX Unanswered Comments the fix is 1.8: builds <= 1.7 are affected, anything from 1.8 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.8, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to DX Unanswered Comments: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: DX Unanswered Comments 1.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C