CVE-2021-39320underConstruction <= 1.18 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting
- 6.1MediumCVSS base score
- 2.3%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 16% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
The underConstruction plugin <= 1.18 for WordPress echoes out the raw value of `$GLOBALS['PHP_SELF']` in the ucOptions.php file. On certain configurations including Apache+modPHP, this makes it possible to use it to perform a reflected Cross-Site Scripting attack by injecting malicious code in the request path.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list a Nuclei template for it.
Show the exploits1
Nuclei templates1 template
- WordPress Under Construction <1.19 - Cross-Site Scripting (Nuclei template) (opens in a new tab)
http/cves/2021/CVE-2021-39320.yamlSeverity medium
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By Wordfence
- 12 days later
· 12 days later
Published
- 4 years later
· 4 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordfenceCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium6.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium6.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 2.3% · top 16% of all CVEs (15 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.1.
Affected products
Noah Kagan · underConstruction
- affected 1.18 – ≤ 1.18
References
References2
- https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/49ae1df0-d6d2-4cbb-9a9d-bf3599429875 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://www.wordfence.com/vulnerability-advisories/#CVE-2021-39320 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2021-25681 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2021-39320)Record last updated .