Description

The Social Chat – Click To Chat App Button plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via 'consent_message' JSON Attribute in .qlwapp data-box in all versions up to, and including, 8.6.2 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. 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. The exploit requires no user interaction beyond page load, as setting auto_open and consent_enabled to 'yes' in the injected data-box JSON causes the consent box — and the embedded script — to execute immediately on page load.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "6.4",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-05T06:17:09.577Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-05T06:17:09.577Z",
  "executiveSummary": "The Social Chat – Click To Chat App Button plugin for WordPress, in versions up to and including 8.6.2, is susceptible to a Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability.\nThis security flaw stems from inadequate input sanitization and output escaping within the 'consent_message' attribute of the .qlwapp data-box.\nThe vulnerability allows an authenticated attacker with contributor-level privileges or higher to inject malicious JavaScript into web pages.\nWhen a victim visits an affected page, the embedded script executes in the context of the user's browser session, potentially leading to unauthorized actions, session hijacking, or data exfiltration.\nThe attack vector is particularly dangerous because it can be configured for automatic execution upon page load by toggling the 'auto_open' and 'consent_enabled' JSON flags to 'yes'.\nGiven the requirement for contributor access, this vulnerability presents a significant risk to WordPress sites with multiple users, as it allows lower-privileged accounts to escalate impact against administrative users or site visitors.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability is the failure of the Social Chat plugin to properly sanitize the 'consent_message' input field before storing it in the database and the subsequent failure to escape this data when rendering it in the frontend via the .qlwapp data-box component.\nThe vulnerability resides within the plugin's handling of JSON-encoded configuration attributes used by the widget. Specifically, the 'consent_message' field is processed as raw input, allowing for the injection of arbitrary HTML and JavaScript tags.\nAn attacker with at least contributor-level privileges can modify the plugin's widget settings. By crafting a payload within the 'consent_message' field—for example, <script>alert('XSS')</script>—the attacker commits malicious code to the database.\nThe exploitation flow is further facilitated by the plugin's operational logic. By setting the JSON attributes 'auto_open' and 'consent_enabled' to 'yes', the attacker ensures that the consent box component is rendered immediately upon page load.\nBecause the 'consent_message' is injected directly into the Document Object Model (DOM) without sufficient sanitization or contextual output escaping, the browser interprets the attacker's input as executable script rather than plain text.\nThis execution occurs automatically upon the user's browser loading the page, requiring no further user interaction beyond simply navigating to the affected URL.\nThe scope of the impact is broad; because the script executes in the victim's browser, the attacker can leverage the victim's session tokens to perform unauthorized administrative actions, redirect users to malicious domains, or intercept sensitive information displayed on the page.\nSince the payload is stored persistently in the database, the malicious script remains active until the corrupted configuration is manually removed by an administrator or the plugin data is purged, ensuring long-term impact on all site visitors viewing the compromised content."
}