# CVE-2026-116520: CVE-2026-116520

Status: published. Published: 2026-10-31. Updated: 2026-11-01.

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.

## Remediation

No remediation reported in collected sources

## Affected products and versions

Not reported in collected sources.

## Severity and prioritization

- CVSS 3.1: 7.2 (high); CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N; source: NVD: security@wordfence.com

- CISA KEV: No listing in collected sources

- EPSS: Not available

- SSVC: exploitation none; automatable no; technical impact partial; source NVD SSVC: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

- Weaknesses: CWE-79

## Exploit evidence

No exploit evidence in collected sources. This is not proof of no exploitation.

## References

- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/password-protect-page/tags/1.9.26/includes/services/class-ppw-shortcode.php#L202 (security@wordfence.com)

- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/password-protect-page/tags/1.9.26/includes/services/class-ppw-shortcode.php#L587 (security@wordfence.com)

- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/password-protect-page/tags/1.9.26/includes/services/class-ppw-shortcode.php#L598 (security@wordfence.com)

- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/password-protect-page/tags/1.9.26/includes/services/class-ppw-shortcode.php#L608 (security@wordfence.com)

- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/password-protect-page/tags/1.9.26/includes/services/class-ppw-shortcode.php#L622 (security@wordfence.com)

- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/password-protect-page/tags/1.9.26/includes/views/shortcode/view-ppw-restriced-content-form.php#L17 (security@wordfence.com)

- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3772960/password-protect-page/trunk/includes/services/class-ppw-shortcode.php (security@wordfence.com)

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/c549ba14-276e-46ab-8019-97430a566d8c?source=cve (security@wordfence.com)

## Provenance

- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-116520; retrieved 2026-11-02; source updated 2026-11-01

Revision: ca2cd0171d44d2dc81e9262b2a5d2ff0855e690f524f7d0241669ec9217e427e

Canonical: https://y2.dev/cve/CVE-2026-116520