CVE-2026-116520: PPWP stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability

high 7.2 published 2026-10-31 · updated 2026-11-02

Affected versions: 1.9.26 and older
Fixed in: 1.9.27 *
Latest version: 1.9.27
Severity: High · CVSS 7.2
Active installs: 30,000+
Type: Stored cross-site scripting (XSS)

* The source does not name a fixed version; this is the first wordpress.org release after the last affected version.

What an attacker needs

Access: None. No account or login is needed.

CVSS vector (score by Wordfence): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

What to do now

Update PPWP to 1.9.27 or newer: Dashboard → Updates, or Plugins → “update now”.
If you cannot update right away, deactivate it until you can.
Turn on auto-updates for it: Plugins → “Enable auto-updates” on its row.
Not sure which version you run? Check your version against every known PPWP issue. With WP-CLI: wp plugin get password-protect-page --field=version.
If you ran an affected version and something looks off (new admin users, spam pages, redirects), run the free scan below.

The advisory

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.

Description from the CVE record, published by Wordfence (the CVE Numbering Authority), via the NVD entry for CVE-2026-116520.

References

NVD CVE-2026-116520 nvd.nist.gov
Wordfence advisory www.wordfence.com
Code change (fix) plugins.trac.wordpress.org
Plugin source plugins.trac.wordpress.org

Ran an affected version? Check your site for signs of a hack

The free scan reads the public side of your site and looks for spam pages, hidden redirects, injected scripts and blacklist entries. No login, no install, about a minute.

Where this data comes from

CVE record, score and references: NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), checked 2026-11-04. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
Versions and install counts: wordpress.org/plugins/password-protect-page (Plugins API), fetched 2026-11-04.
The summary, “what an attacker needs” and “what to do” sections are our plain-English reading of the record and the plugin's release history; the quoted description is the record's own text. Spot an error? Email Daniel.