WordPress Security Audit Checklist for Production Sites
A WordPress security audit should produce clear remediation actions, not a long report nobody executes. This checklist is designed for production teams that need a practi...
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The User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to SQL Injection via the ‘membership_ids[]’ parameter in all versions up to, and including, 5.1.2 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database.
Update to version 5.1.3, or a newer patched version
The Beaver Builder Page Builder – Drag and Drop Website Builder plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'settings[js]' parameter in versions up to, and including, 2.10.1.1 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Update to version 2.10.1.2, or a newer patched version
The PrivateContent Free plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'align' shortcode attribute in the [pc-login-form] shortcode in all versions up to, and including, 1.2.0. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on the 'align' attribute. Specifically, the attribute value flows from the shortcode through pc_login_form() to pc_static::form_align(), where it is directly concatenated into an HTML class attribute without esc_attr() or any escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Update to version 1.3.0, or a newer patched version
The Robo Gallery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'Loading Label' setting in all versions up to, and including, 5.1.3. The plugin uses a custom `|***...***|` marker pattern in its `fixJsFunction()` method to embed raw JavaScript function references within JSON-encoded configuration objects. When a gallery's options are rendered on the frontend, `json_encode()` wraps all string values in double quotes. The `fixJsFunction()` method then strips the `"|***` and `***|"` sequences, effectively converting a JSON string value into raw JavaScript code. The Loading Label field (stored as `rbs_gallery_LoadingWord` post_meta) is an `rbstext` type field that is sanitized with `sanitize_text_field()` on save. While this strips HTML tags, it does not strip the `|***...***|` markers since they contain no HTML. When a user inputs `|***alert(document.domain)***|`, the value passes through sanitization intact, is stored in post_meta, and is later retrieved and output within an inline `` tag via `renderMainBlock()` with the quote markers stripped — resulting in arbitrary JavaScript execution. The gallery post type uses `capability_type => 'post'`, allowing Author-level users to create galleries. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Author-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses a page containing the gallery shortcode.
Update to version 5.1.4, or a newer patched version
The pdfl.io plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'pdflio' shortcode in all versions up to, and including, 1.0.5. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on the 'text' shortcode attribute. The output_shortcode() function directly concatenates the user-supplied $text variable into HTML output without applying esc_html() or any other escaping function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Update to version 1.0.6, or a newer patched version
The WP Visitor Statistics (Real Time Traffic) plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the plugin's 'wsm_showDayStatsGraph' shortcode in all versions up to, and including, 8.4 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on user supplied attributes. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Update to version 8.5, or a newer patched version
The Magic Conversation For Gravity Forms plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'magic-conversation' shortcode in all versions up to, and including, 3.0.97 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on user supplied attributes. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Update to version 3.0.98, or a newer patched version
The Element Pack Addons for Elementor plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the SVG Image Widget in versions up to and including 8.4.2. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on SVG content fetched from remote URLs in the render_svg() function. The function fetches SVG content using wp_safe_remote_get() and then directly echoes it to the page without any sanitization, only applying a preg_replace() to add attributes to the SVG tag which does not remove malicious event handlers. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary JavaScript in SVG files that will execute whenever a user accesses a page containing the malicious widget.
Update to version 8.5.0, or a newer patched version
The Blog2Social: Social Media Auto Post & Scheduler plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass through user-controlled key in all versions up to, and including, 8.8.3. This is due to the plugin's AJAX handlers failing to validate that the user-supplied 'b2s_id' parameter belongs to the current user before performing UPDATE and DELETE operations. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to modify, reschedule, or delete other users' scheduled social media posts.
Update to version 8.8.4, or a newer patched version
The Masteriyo LMS – Online Course Builder for eLearning, LMS & Education plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key in versions up to and including 2.1.7. This is due to insufficient webhook signature verification in the handle_webhook() function. The webhook endpoint processes unauthenticated requests and only performs signature verification if both the webhook_secret setting is configured AND the HTTP_STRIPE_SIGNATURE header is present. Since webhook_secret defaults to an empty string, the webhook processes attacker-controlled JSON payloads without any verification. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to send fake Stripe webhook events with arbitrary order_id values in the metadata, mark any order as completed without payment, and gain unauthorized access to paid course content.
Update to version 2.1.8, or a newer patched version
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