VulnerabilityPublished 22 Jan 2024Updated 30 May 2025

CVE-2023-7194: Meris (WordPress theme) · Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Affects Meris (WordPress theme)Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.1 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 15:59 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.1Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 26% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 22 Jan 2024
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Unknown Meris	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should take proactive steps to mitigate this vulnerability beyond generic advice: 1) Immediately audit all WordPress sites for the use of the Meris theme and identify versions up to 1.1.2. 2) If possible, upgrade to a patched version once available or apply vendor-provided patches promptly. In the absence of official patches, consider temporarily disabling or replacing the theme to eliminate exposure. 3) Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules specifically targeting reflected XSS payload patterns associated with this vulnerability to block malicious requests. 4) Enforce strict Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict the execution of unauthorized scripts in browsers, mitigating the impact of injected scripts. 5) Educate administrators and privileged users about the risks of clicking on suspicious links and implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the impact of credential theft. 6) Regularly monitor web server and application logs for unusual or suspicious requests that may indicate attempted exploitation. 7) Conduct internal penetration testing focusing on XSS vectors to validate the effectiveness of mitigations. 8) Ensure that all input validation and output encoding best practices are followed in customizations or plugins interacting with the theme to prevent similar issues.

Description

The Meris WordPress theme through 1.1.2 does not sanitise and escape some parameters before outputting them back in the page, leading to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting which could be used against high privilege users such as admin

Impact

For European organizations using the Meris WordPress theme, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to website integrity and administrative security. Successful exploitation could lead to unauthorized access to administrative functions, enabling attackers to modify website content, inject malicious code, or steal sensitive data. This can damage organizational reputation, lead to data breaches involving personal or customer information, and disrupt business operations. Given the widespread use of WordPress across Europe, even a medium-severity vulnerability can have outsized impact if exploited at scale. Organizations in sectors with strict data protection regulations, such as finance, healthcare, and government, face heightened compliance risks if this vulnerability is exploited. Additionally, attackers could leverage this XSS flaw as a foothold for further attacks, including privilege escalation or lateral movement within the hosting environment. The requirement for user interaction means that phishing or social engineering campaigns targeting site administrators could be an effective attack vector. The absence of known exploits in the wild currently reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate it, especially as threat actors often weaponize such vulnerabilities rapidly after disclosure.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

wpscan.com/vulnerability/e20292af-939a-4cb1-91e4-5ff6aa0c7fbe (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 8 Jul 2025, 16:41 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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