Elementor Website Builder <= 4.0.4 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via REST API

Summary

The Elementor Website Builder plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the _elementor_data meta field in versions up to, and including, 4.0.4. This is due to insufficient input sanitization when processing form-encoded REST API requests. The plugin registers the _elementor_data meta field with show_in_rest but omits a sanitize_callback, relying instead on a rest_pre_insert_post filter (sanitize_post_data function) that only sanitizes JSON-encoded request bodies. When a contributor sends a form-encoded PATCH request to the WordPress REST API, the json_decode() call on the raw body returns null, causing all sanitization to be skipped. The unsanitized data is then stored via update_post_meta() and later output without escaping through multiple widget sinks including the HTML widget's print_unescaped_setting() function. 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.

Timeline

1. May 1, 2026, 5:29 AM UTCCVE published
2. May 1, 2026, 4:05 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

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

3. May 1, 2026, 4:37 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• elemntor Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder

  through 4.0.4

References 8