# Molongui Authorship <= 5.2.12 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored DOM-Based Cross-Site Scripting via Byline Link Processing

- **ID:** WPSEC-2026-0631
- **Plugin:** Molongui Authorship – Author Boxes, Guest Authors & Co-Authors for WordPress (`molongui-authorship`), https://wordpress.org/plugins/molongui-authorship/
- **Affected versions:** from 4.0.0 before 5.3.0
- **Fixed in:** 5.3.0 (Update to 5.3.0 or later.)
- **Severity:** Medium 5.4 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N)
- **Weakness:** CWE-79
- **Usage among sites WPSec scans:** plugin Medium, affected versions Medium (as of 2026-10-08)
- **Attack surface analysis:** https://attacksurface.wpsec.com/plugin/molongui-authorship
- **Fix released:** 2026-10-07
- **Published:** 2026-10-08
- **URL:** https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-0631/

## Description

The Molongui Authorship plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored DOM-Based Cross-Site Scripting via its byline link processing in versions 4.0.0 up to, and including, 5.2.12. The plugin's front-end byline script URL-decodes the targets of matching links on the page and writes them back without validating the resulting URL protocol. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute when a user clicks the injected link.

## References

- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-0631/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/molongui-authorship/tags/5.3.0/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/molongui-authorship/

Source: WPSec, https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-0631/

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.