What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-8481: Special Text Boxes <= 6.2.4 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary Shortcode Execution

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.3 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2024-09-25 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-94

Description

The The Special Text Boxes plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary shortcode execution in all versions up to, and including, 6.2.4. This is due to the plugin adding the filter add_filter('comment_text', 'do_shortcode'); which will run all shortcodes in comments. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary shortcodes.

Affected products

• minimus Special Text Boxes: through 6.2.2

References

• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3166470/
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/tags/6.2.2/wp-special-textboxes/trunk/stb-class.php#L36
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/15b2a08f-2122-4eaf-ab46-1945cf6a68ca?source=cve

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