# Cooked – Recipe Management <= 1.16.1 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via [cooked-timer] Shortcode

- **ID:** WPSEC-2026-0509
- **Plugin:** Cooked – Recipe Management (`cooked`), https://wordpress.org/plugins/cooked/
- **Affected versions:** from 1.8.1 before 1.16.2
- **Fixed in:** 1.16.2 (Update to 1.16.2 or later.)
- **Severity:** Medium 6.4 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N)
- **Weakness:** CWE-79
- **Usage among sites WPSec scans:** plugin Low, affected versions Low (as of 2026-10-07)
- **Attack surface analysis:** https://attacksurface.wpsec.com/plugin/cooked
- **Fix released:** 2026-10-05
- **Published:** 2026-10-07
- **URL:** https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-0509/

## Description

The Cooked – Recipe Management plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the [cooked-timer] shortcode (and its [timer] alias) in versions 1.8.1 up to, and including, 1.16.1 due to insufficient output escaping of the timer description in the data-desc attribute. When no 'desc' attribute is given, the description is taken from the shortcode's enclosed content, which is only passed through wp_strip_all_tags(); that function does not encode quotes, so the value can break out of the attribute. 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.

## References

- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-0509/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/cooked/tags/1.16.2/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/cooked/

Source: WPSec, https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-0509/

License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Free to use, share and adapt, also commercially, if you credit WPSec and link to this advisory.