# Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors <= 4.17.0 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Genesis Post Author Shortcode 'before' and 'after' Attributes

- **ID:** WPSEC-2026-1749
- **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-2026-1749/

## 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 'before' and 'after' attributes of the Genesis post author shortcodes in all versions up to, and including, 4.17.0 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. 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. This only affects sites that use the Genesis Framework theme.

## References

- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1749/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/publishpress-authors/tags/4.18.0/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/publishpress-authors/

Source: WPSec, https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1749/

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.