# Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors <= 4.17.0 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Author Display Name

- **ID:** WPSEC-2026-1748
- **Plugin:** Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors (`publishpress-authors`), https://wordpress.org/plugins/publishpress-authors/
- **Affected versions:** all versions before 4.18.0
- **Fixed in:** 4.18.0 (Update to 4.18.0 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 2026-10-27)
- **Attack surface analysis:** https://attacksurface.wpsec.com/plugin/publishpress-authors
- **Fix released:** 2026-10-26
- **Published:** 2026-10-27
- **URL:** https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1748/

## Description

The Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the author display name in all versions up to, and including, 4.17.0, due to insufficient output escaping in the name column of the Authors list table, where the display name is printed unescaped inside an aria-label attribute. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, who have an author profile linked to their account, to inject arbitrary web scripts that will execute whenever an administrator opens the Authors list in the dashboard.

## References

- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1748/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/publishpress-authors/tags/4.18.0/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/publishpress-authors/

Source: WPSec, https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1748/

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.