CVE-2024-0656: CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') in saadiqbal Password Protected — Lock Entire Site, Pages, Posts, Categories, and Partial Content
The Password Protected – Ultimate Plugin to Password Protect Your WordPress Content with Ease plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the Google Captcha Site Key in all versions up to, and including, 2.6.6 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with administrator-level access, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. This only affects multi-site installations and installations where unfiltered_html has been disabled.
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
The vulnerability CVE-2024-0656 is a stored cross-site scripting issue (CWE-79) in the 'Password Protected' WordPress plugin by saadiqbal. It arises from insufficient input sanitization and output escaping of the Google Captcha Site Key parameter. Authenticated users with administrator privileges can exploit this to inject arbitrary web scripts into pages, which execute when accessed by users. This vulnerability specifically impacts multi-site WordPress installations or those where the unfiltered_html capability is disabled. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 4.4, reflecting a medium severity with network attack vector, high attack complexity, and requiring high privileges but no user interaction.
Potential Impact
An attacker with administrator-level access can inject malicious scripts into WordPress pages via the Google Captcha Site Key parameter. These scripts execute in the context of users visiting the infected pages, potentially leading to data theft, session hijacking, or other malicious actions limited to the scope of the injected script. The impact is limited to multi-site or restricted HTML capability environments and requires high privileges, reducing the overall risk to lower-privileged users.
Mitigation Recommendations
No official patch or fix is currently available for this vulnerability. Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the vendor advisory for current remediation guidance. Until a fix is released, administrators should carefully control access to the plugin settings and restrict administrator privileges to trusted users only. Monitoring updates from the plugin vendor for a security update is recommended.
CVE-2024-0656: CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') in saadiqbal Password Protected — Lock Entire Site, Pages, Posts, Categories, and Partial Content
Description
The Password Protected – Ultimate Plugin to Password Protect Your WordPress Content with Ease plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the Google Captcha Site Key in all versions up to, and including, 2.6.6 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with administrator-level access, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. This only affects multi-site installations and installations where unfiltered_html has been disabled.
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
The vulnerability CVE-2024-0656 is a stored cross-site scripting issue (CWE-79) in the 'Password Protected' WordPress plugin by saadiqbal. It arises from insufficient input sanitization and output escaping of the Google Captcha Site Key parameter. Authenticated users with administrator privileges can exploit this to inject arbitrary web scripts into pages, which execute when accessed by users. This vulnerability specifically impacts multi-site WordPress installations or those where the unfiltered_html capability is disabled. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 4.4, reflecting a medium severity with network attack vector, high attack complexity, and requiring high privileges but no user interaction.
Potential Impact
An attacker with administrator-level access can inject malicious scripts into WordPress pages via the Google Captcha Site Key parameter. These scripts execute in the context of users visiting the infected pages, potentially leading to data theft, session hijacking, or other malicious actions limited to the scope of the injected script. The impact is limited to multi-site or restricted HTML capability environments and requires high privileges, reducing the overall risk to lower-privileged users.
Mitigation Recommendations
No official patch or fix is currently available for this vulnerability. Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the vendor advisory for current remediation guidance. Until a fix is released, administrators should carefully control access to the plugin settings and restrict administrator privileges to trusted users only. Monitoring updates from the plugin vendor for a security update is recommended.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.1
- Assigner Short Name
- Wordfence
- Date Reserved
- 2024-01-17T14:58:53.242Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 699f6de1b7ef31ef0b590105
Added to database: 2/25/2026, 9:47:13 PM
Last enriched: 4/9/2026, 5:37:56 AM
Last updated: 4/11/2026, 3:05:22 PM
Views: 16
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