Short Comment Filter <= 2.2 - Authenticated (Administrator+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via 'Minimum Count' Setting
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- Short Comment Filter
- Affected Version
<= 2.2- CVSS
- 4.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2026-3362
At a glance
CVE-2026-3362 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Short Comment Filter WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.2. It carries a CVSS score of 4.4 (reachable over the network). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Administrator level or above. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed April 2026, reported by Muhammad Nur Ibnu Hubab.
Vulnerability Overview
The Short Comment Filter plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'Minimum Count' settings field in all versions up to and including 2.2. This is due to insufficient input sanitization (no sanitize callback on register_setting) and missing output escaping (no esc_attr() on the echoed value in the input's value attribute). The option value is stored via update_option() and rendered unescaped in an HTML attribute context. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with administrator-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in the settings page that will execute whenever a user accesses that page. This is particularly impactful in WordPress multisite installations or when DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML is set, where administrators are not granted the unfiltered_html capability.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, and no interaction from a victim user.
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Short Comment Filter <= 2.2 carries this weakness at esc_attr(), and reaching it takes an account at Administrator 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. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Short Comment Filter yet, so installs running <= 2.2 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.
Remediation
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Administrator 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. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C