CVE-2026-12938
Newsletters <= 4.15 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via 'target' Shortcode Attribute
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- Wordfence
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.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordfenceCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium6.4 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 3.1 | Medium6.4 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.35% · top 71% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.4.
Weakness
Affected products
- affected ≤ 4.15
References (7)
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/293abae5-a7fb-401f-af09-324a81ce8709?source=cve (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L845 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L851 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L492 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/helpers/shortcode.php#L464 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/newsletters-lite/tags/4.15/includes/checkinit.php#L172 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3621582%40newsletters-lite&new=3621582%40newsletters-lite (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2026-12938)Record last updated .