What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-8486: Shortcodes and extra features for Phlox theme <= 2.16.3 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Modern Heading and Icon Picker Widgets

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.4 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2024-10-05 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-79

Description

The Shortcodes and extra features for Phlox theme plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘url’ parameter in the Modern Heading and Icon Picker widgets all versions up to, and including, 2.16.3 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.

Affected products

• averta Shortcodes and extra features for Phlox theme: before 2.16.4 — fixed in 2.16.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: averta Shortcodes and extra features for Phlox theme 2.16.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/auxin-elements/trunk/includes/elementor/widgets/heading-modern.php#L1168
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/auxin-elements/trunk/includes/elementor/widgets/heading-modern.php#L1205
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/auxin-elements/trunk/includes/elementor/widgets/icon.php#L397
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3161415/
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/09316a23-3a99-47f2-9c3f-795dc0a4a792?source=cve

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