Smart Post <= 4.0.9 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via User display_name via Author Filter block
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 4.0.10
- Affected Version
<= 4.0.9- CVSS
- 6.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation
- CVE
CVE-2026-119160
At a glance
CVE-2026-119160 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation vulnerability in the Smart Post WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.0.9. It carries a CVSS score of 6.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 4.0.10; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2026, reported by Jacek Sowiński (dzaku).
Vulnerability Overview
The Smart Post – Post Grid, Post Carousel, Post Slider Gutenberg Blocks for Blog & News plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'display_name' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.0.9 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. Exploitation requires the victim page to contain an Author Filter block alongside a grid or live-filter block, and execution is triggered by a visitor clicking the attacker's author entry in the dropdown — a standard filter interaction requiring no elevated privileges from the victim.
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
Smart Post <= 4.0.9 carries this weakness at display_name, and reaching it takes an account at Subscriber 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 Smart Post the fix is 4.0.10: builds <= 4.0.9 are affected, anything from 4.0.10 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 4.0.10, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Subscriber 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: Smart Post 4.0.10 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in Smart Post – Post Grid, Post Carousel, Post Slider Gutenberg Blocks for Blog & News
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