CVE-2026-18385Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content <= 4.16.19 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Shortcode Execution via First Name / Last Name Profile Field
- 5.4MediumCVSS base score
- 0.52%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 55% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
The The Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary shortcode execution in all versions up to, and including, 4.16.19. This is due to the software allowing users to execute an action that does not properly validate a value before running do_shortcode. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to execute arbitrary shortcodes. The partial mitigation introduced via strip_shortcodes() on [profile-first-name] and [profile-last-name] can be bypassed through the [profile-display-name format="first_last_names"] render path, the [profile-bio] render path (which re-fetches the raw description meta), and the double-bracket escape sequence [[tag]], all of which allow attacker-controlled shortcode text to reach the outer do_shortcode() call.
Timeline
ID reserved
By Wordfence
- 17 days later
· 17 days later
Published
- 1 day later
· 1 day 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 | Medium5.4 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 3.1 | Medium5.4 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.52% · top 55% of all CVEs (13 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 5.4.
Affected products
References
References10
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/345f3354-d2cb-4b92-a25d-9551a5992919?source=cve (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/ShortcodeParser/MemberDirectoryTag.php#L98 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/Themes/DragDrop/MemberDirectoryListing.php#L90 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/ShortcodeParser/Builder/FrontendProfileBuilder.php#L286 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/Classes/RegistrationAuth.php#L170 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/ShortcodeParser/MemberDirectoryTag.php#L98 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/Themes/DragDrop/MemberDirectoryListing.php#L90 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/ShortcodeParser/Builder/FrontendProfileBuilder.php#L286 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/Classes/RegistrationAuth.php#L170 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3635466%40wp-user-avatar&new=3635466%40wp-user-avatar (opens in a new tab)
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-2026-59853 (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-2026-18385)Record last updated .