VulnerabilityPublished 12 Mar 2026

CVE-2026-2687: Reading progressbar (WordPress plugin) · Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Affects Reading progressbar (WordPress plugin)Source CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.3 Medium : upgrade to 1.3.1 when convenient.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.3Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 3% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.3.1

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

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: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
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: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 12 Mar 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 30 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.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), 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

Upgrade Reading progressbar (WordPress plugin) to 1.3.1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Reading progressbar	Affected <1.3.1	Fixed in 1.3.1

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2026-2687, organizations should immediately update the Reading progressbar plugin to version 1.3.1 or later once the patch is released. If you cannot patch yet, administrators should restrict plugin configuration access strictly to trusted users and audit admin accounts for suspicious activity. Implementing a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with custom rules to detect and block suspicious script injections in plugin settings can provide temporary protection. Additionally, enforcing the principle of least privilege by limiting the number of users with administrative rights reduces the risk of exploitation. Regularly scanning WordPress installations with vulnerability scanners such as WPScan can help identify vulnerable plugins. Site administrators should also monitor logs for unusual behavior indicative of XSS exploitation attempts. Finally, educating administrators about the risks of stored XSS and safe plugin management practices will help reduce the likelihood of successful attacks.

Description

The Reading progressbar WordPress plugin before 1.3.1 does not sanitise and escape some of its settings, which could allow high privilege users such as admin to perform Stored Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed (for example in multisite setup).

Impact

The impact of CVE-2026-2687 is primarily on WordPress sites using the Reading progressbar plugin before version 1.3.1. Since exploitation requires administrative privileges, the threat is limited to environments where an attacker has already compromised or gained access to a high-privilege user account. Successful exploitation could lead to persistent XSS attacks, enabling attackers to execute arbitrary JavaScript in the context of the affected site. This can result in session hijacking, defacement, redirection to malicious sites, or further privilege escalation. The vulnerability affects confidentiality, integrity, and availability but to a limited degree due to the prerequisite of high privileges and user interaction. Organizations running multisite WordPress installations are particularly at risk because the vulnerability bypasses the unfiltered_html capability restriction. While no active exploits are known, the presence of this vulnerability increases the attack surface and could be leveraged in targeted attacks against high-value WordPress sites, especially those with multiple administrators or less stringent access controls.

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/af2e1249-2b69-47b6-85aa-9a6b30c51936/ (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 12 Mar 2026, 14:01 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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