Short Comment Filter <= 2.2 - Authenticated (Administrator+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via 'Minimum Count' Setting

Summary

The Short Comment Filter plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'Minimum Count' settings field in all versions up to and including 2.2. This is due to insufficient input sanitization (no sanitize callback on register_setting) and missing output escaping (no esc_attr() on the echoed value in the input's value attribute). The option value is stored via update_option() and rendered unescaped in an HTML attribute context. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with administrator-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in the settings page that will execute whenever a user accesses that page. This is particularly impactful in WordPress multisite installations or when DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML is set, where administrators are not granted the unfiltered_html capability.

Timeline

1. Apr 22, 2026, 7:45 AM UTCCVE published
2. Apr 22, 2026, 1:48 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

3. Apr 22, 2026, 1:48 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• itsananderson Short Comment Filter

  through 2.2

References 9