Description

Unauthenticated Cross Site Scripting (XSS) in Hotel Booking <= 3.8 versions.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-10-06T09:17:50.940Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-10-06T09:17:50.940Z",
  "executiveSummary": "The Hotel Booking plugin for WordPress, specifically versions 3.8 and below, contains a critical security vulnerability categorized as Unauthenticated Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).\nThis vulnerability stems from the improper sanitization and validation of user-supplied input before rendering it back to the browser, allowing for the injection and execution of malicious client-side scripts.\nBecause the vulnerability is unauthenticated, any remote attacker can exploit the flaw without requiring a valid user account, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for malicious actors.\nSuccessful exploitation allows an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript within the context of a victim's session, potentially leading to unauthorized actions, session hijacking, credential theft, or redirection to malicious sites.\nThis poses a significant risk to both the site administrators and end-users, as the injected scripts can manipulate the page content or exfiltrate sensitive data stored within the user's browser, such as cookies or authentication tokens.\nThe vulnerability highlights a lack of adequate input filtering protocols in the application's request-handling layer, necessitating immediate mitigation actions to protect site integrity.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability is identified as a Stored or Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) flaw affecting the Hotel Booking plugin, versions 3.8 and below. The root cause is the failure of the application to properly sanitize and validate HTTP request parameters before embedding them into the HTML response document.\nSpecifically, the plugin processes user-supplied inputs through its frontend or administrative interfaces without utilizing sufficient output encoding or input sanitization functions (e.g., esc_html(), esc_js(), or wp_kses()).\nAn attacker can exploit this by crafting a malicious payload containing JavaScript, such as '<script>alert(document.cookie)</script>', and passing it via affected URL parameters or form input fields processed by the plugin.\nBecause the application fails to neutralize these characters, the injected payload is returned to the user's browser, which interprets the script as legitimate code belonging to the site origin.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: First, the attacker identifies an input vector in the plugin that reflects data in the application's response. Second, the attacker crafts a malicious payload designed to interact with the victim's session. Third, the attacker delivers this payload to a target, potentially via a crafted link or by inducing the application to store the malicious script if the vulnerability is of the persistent variety.\nUpon execution, the script runs within the security context of the target's browser. This allows the attacker to bypass Same-Origin Policy (SOP) constraints, facilitating the theft of session cookies, session tokens, or other sensitive data residing in LocalStorage or SessionStorage.\nFurthermore, the attacker can leverage this access to perform actions on behalf of the victim, such as modifying booking details, altering account configurations, or performing unauthorized administrative operations if the victim is an authenticated administrator.\nThe exposure is network-wide, meaning the vulnerability is accessible over the internet to any unauthenticated remote attacker. No specific privileges are required to initiate the attack, making this a high-impact vector for defacement, phishing campaigns, or the deployment of more complex client-side attacks.\nThe lack of authentication requirements allows for automated scanning and mass exploitation by attackers seeking to compromise vulnerable instances of Hotel Booking versions 3.8 and earlier."
}