Vulnerability in Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors — CVE-2026-111592
What to do now
Update Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors to 4.18.0 or later.
Affected versions
- Everything up to and including 4.17.0
Affected: Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors (plugin, publishpress-authors)
What the vulnerability is
The Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'name (maps to display_name)' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.17.0 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. Exploitation requires the attacker's user account to have a mapped author term, which occurs when an administrator has assigned them as a co-author on content or has enabled automatic author term creation for their role — this mapping is not present by default for new users on a stock install.
Sources
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/publishpress-authors/tags/4.17.0/src/core/Classes/Author_Editor.php#L86
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/publishpress-authors/tags/4.17.0/src/modules/multiple-authors/multiple-authors.php#L302
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/publishpress-authors/tags/4.17.0/src/modules/multiple-authors/multiple-authors.php#L5233
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/publishpress-authors/tags/4.18.0/src/core/Classes/Author_Editor.php
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/329226bc-7d0e-45e0-8ac0-656517e0e4ca?source=cve