Vulnerability · Published Jul 29, 2026 · Assigned by Wordfence
CVE-2026-12938Newsletters <= 4.15 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via 'target' Shortcode Attribute
Medium 6.4
In plain English
A medium-severity cross-site scripting in Newsletters from contrid. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.3% (higher than 29% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
The Newsletters Lite plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'target' attribute of the [newsletters_post] shortcode in versions up to and including 4.15. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping in the posts_single() function which propagates the attacker-controlled 'target' attribute into the global $wpml_target, and in the shortcode_posts() 'post_thumbnail' handler which concatenates $wpml_target into a target="..." HTML attribute without esc_attr(). 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.
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| contrid | Newsletters | 0 – through 4.15 |
Weakness: CWE-79 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
References
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/293abae5-a7fb-401f-af09-324a81ce8709?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L845
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L851
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L492
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L464
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/includes/checkinit.php#L172
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3621582%40newsletters-lite&new=3621582%40newsletters-lite