Description

Unauthenticated Cross Site Scripting (XSS) in WP Statistics <= 14.16.11 versions.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "6.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-03T17:17:28.383Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-03T17:17:28.383Z",
  "executiveSummary": "An unauthenticated Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability exists in the WP Statistics WordPress plugin, specifically affecting versions up to and including 14.16.11. This security flaw allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts into pages generated by the plugin. Because the vulnerability does not require prior authentication or active session credentials, any external actor can potentially trigger the execution of malicious code. The primary risk associated with this vulnerability is the compromise of privileged administrative sessions. If an administrative user views the statistics dashboard, reporting pages, or other administrative interfaces containing the injected payload, the script executes automatically within the context of their active browser session. This execution bypasses traditional security boundaries and can lead to unauthorized administrative actions, including administrative account creation, unauthorized configuration modifications, or full site takeover. Mitigating this risk requires immediate remediation procedures to ensure the application is running a patched version of the plugin. Organizations must also employ web application firewalls to detect and block common payload injection patterns before they reach the database layer, thereby protecting the downstream administrative users from potential exploitation scenarios.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability lies in the insufficient sanitization and output encoding of user-controlled inputs within the WP Statistics plugin. Specifically, the application monitors and records visitor telemetry, such as IP addresses, User-Agent strings, and Referer headers. When processing these incoming HTTP requests, the plugin's tracking mechanisms store these values directly into the application's database without applying robust sanitization techniques, such as stripping HTML tags or filtering executable scripts. Consequently, the stored tracking records retain any malicious code supplied by external clients.\nThe attack flow begins when an unauthenticated attacker sends a crafted HTTP request to the target WordPress instance. The attacker inserts a malicious JavaScript payload into one of the headers or parameters tracked by the plugin, such as the HTTP Referer or User-Agent. Upon receiving the request, the WP Statistics backend processes the metadata and writes the raw payload into the logging table of the database. At this stage, the payload remains dormant in the database.\nThe exploitation phase is triggered when an authenticated user, typically an administrator, accesses the WP Statistics reporting interface to review site traffic. When rendering the page, the application queries the database for the logged telemetry and inserts the raw, unsanitized strings directly into the HTML structure of the administrative dashboard. Because the application fails to apply output encoding (such as esc_html or esc_attr in WordPress) before outputting the retrieved values, the administrator's browser interprets the injected strings as executable HTML and JavaScript.\nConsequently, the payload executes within the context of the administrator's session. The injected script can perform any action the administrator is authorized to execute, including utilizing WordPress REST API endpoints to create new administrative accounts, modifying active themes or plugins to embed persistent backdoors, or exfiltrating sensitive site configurations. The impact is elevated because the initial delivery mechanism is completely unauthenticated, allowing any internet-facing entity to inject payloads that are later executed by high-privilege users.\nFurthermore, the vulnerability exhibits characteristics of Stored Cross-Site Scripting, where the payload persistency relies on database storage. This means the attack does not require immediate, real-time interaction between the attacker and the administrator. The malicious payload can remain dormant in the statistics database for days or weeks until an administrator decides to analyze the traffic logs. Once rendered, the script executes silently in the background, often leaving no immediate visible indicators to the administrator that their session has been compromised, thereby facilitating long-term persistence and unauthorized access."
}