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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.8

CVE-2019-16780 json

Stored cross-site scripting (XSS) in WordPress block editor

published 2019-12-20 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2019-7298 , GHSA-x3wp-h3qx-9w94

cvss
5.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.7%
EPSS 1.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 77%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

WordPress users with lower privileges (like contributors) can inject JavaScript code in the block editor using a specific payload, which is executed within the dashboard. This can lead to XSS if an admin opens the post in the editor. Execution of this attack does require an authenticated user. This has been patched in WordPress 5.3.1, along with all the previous WordPress versions from 3.7 to 5.3 via a minor release. Automatic updates are enabled by default for minor releases and we strongly recommend that you keep them enabled.

Patch / fix

  • WordPress WordPress 5.3.1
  • wordpress Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.3.2+dfsg1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-16780

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-2019-16780 updated cvss 5.8

wordpress: XSS in WordPress block editor

  • 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

Exploit prediction

1.70% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 77% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
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

Affected products

  • WordPress WordPress

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation
Technology feeds

References

Sources

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.

The maintainers of WordPress/wordpress-develop published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.