WordPress before 5.2.3 allows XSS in post previews by authenticated users.

published 2019-09-11 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2019-7035

cvss: 5.4; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 5.2%; EPSS 5.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 92%
public exploits: 1; Exploit-DB

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 1

wordpress wordpress 5.2.3

wordpress Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.2.3+dfsg1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-16223

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2019-16223 updated 2026-01-08 cvss 5.4

wordpress: XSS in post previews by authenticated users

Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

2019-09-11 Published
2021-01-04 First public exploit (EDB-49338)

Exploit prediction

5.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 92% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

EDB-49338 Wordpress Core 5.2.2 - 'post previews' XSS webapps, 2021-01-04
packetstormsecurity.com http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/160745/WordPress-Core-5.2.2-Cross-Site-Scripting.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.1	5.4	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
NVD	2.0	3.5	AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N

Classification

Weakness

CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation

Technology feeds

WordPress rss critical rss

References

packetstormsecurity.com /files/160745/WordPress-Core-5.2.2-Cross-Site-Scripting.html
exploit, third-party-advisory, vdb-entry
debian.org /security/2020/dsa-4599
vendor-advisory, third-party-advisory
debian.org /security/2020/dsa-4677
vendor-advisory, third-party-advisory
wordpress.org /news/2019/09/wordpress-5-2-3-security-and-maintenance-release/
release-notes, vendor-advisory
wpvulndb.com /vulnerabilities/9862
third-party-advisory
lists.debian.org /debian-lts-announce/2019/10/msg00023.html
mailing-list, third-party-advisory
seclists.org /bugtraq/2020/Jan/8
mailing-list, third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2019-16223
NVD CVE-2019-16223

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary