Vulnerability · Published Apr 22, 2026 · Assigned by Wordfence

CVE-2026-4280Breaking News WP <= 1.3 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Local File Inclusion/Read

Medium 6.5

In plain English

A medium-severity path traversal in Breaking News WP from doctorwp. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.8% (higher than 57% of all known vulnerabilities).

Severity (CVSS 3.1)6.5Medium

Exploit odds (30 days)0.8%top 42.8% of all CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none

Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

The Breaking News WP plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 1.3. This is due to the brnwp_ajax_form AJAX endpoint lacking both authorization checks and CSRF verification, combined with insufficient path validation when the brnwp_theme option value is passed directly to an include() statement in the brnwp_show_breaking_news_wp() shortcode handler. While sanitize_text_field() is applied to user input, it does not strip directory traversal sequences (../). This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to overwrite the brnwp_theme option with a directory traversal payload (e.g., ../../../../etc/passwd) and subsequently trigger file inclusion of arbitrary files on the server when the shortcode is rendered.

Affected products (as reported)

Vendor	Product	Versions
doctorwp	Breaking News WP	0 – through 1.3

Weakness: CWE-22 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

In plain English

Official description

Affected products (as reported)

References