CVE-2026-116520

PPWP <= 1.9.26 - Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via '[ppwp]' Shortcode 'desc_below_form' Attribute via Placeholder Marker Collision

2026-10-30 17:25

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 1.9.27
Affected Plugin: PPWP – Password Protect Pages
Affected Version: <= 1.9.26
CVSS: 7.2High
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation
CVE: CVE-2026-116520

View all PPWP – Password Protect Pages vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2026-116520 is a high-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation vulnerability in the PPWP WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.9.26. It carries a CVSS score of 7.2 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.9.27; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2026, reported by Sawyer.

Vulnerability Overview

The PPWP – Password Protect Pages plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'comment / shortcode attribute desc_below_form (and placeholder as the marker-smuggling helper)' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 1.9.26 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. This is exploitable by unauthenticated attackers because WordPress's comment_content filter leaves bare shortcode text (containing no HTML tags) untouched, and the comment_whitelist setting auto-approves subsequent comments from a previously approved name and email without administrator intervention.

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, and no interaction from a victim user.

CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation

Reaching this weakness in PPWP <= 1.9.26 takes no account at all. 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 PPWP the fix is 1.9.27: builds <= 1.9.26 are affected, anything from 1.9.27 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.9.27, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: PPWP 1.9.27 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-116520 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/c549ba14-276e-46ab-8019-97430a566d8c https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-116520

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in PPWP – Password Protect Pages

CVSS Vector

7.2

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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