Executive brief
The Page-list plugin for WordPress, which is used to display lists of pages on a website, contains a security flaw that allows users with basic contributor access to view restricted content. By using specific shortcodes, an attacker can bypass normal privacy settings to read the titles and contents of private or draft pages they are not authorized to see. This could lead to the exposure of sensitive internal information or unpublished site content.
Technical details
The vulnerability exists in the pagelist_unqprfx_ext_shortcode() function, which handles the [pagelist_ext] and [pagelistext] shortcodes. The function accepts attacker-controlled attributes such as post_status, post_type, and show_meta_key and passes them directly to get_pages() and get_post_meta() without verifying if the user has the necessary permissions to view those objects. Furthermore, if a post has no child pages, the query defaults to child_of => 0, allowing the shortcode to return data from any page on the site. Authenticated attackers with contributor-level permissions can exploit this by inserting the shortcode into a draft and using the preview feature to disclose titles, excerpts, and metadata of private or draft posts.
Affected products
- WordPress Plugin Page-list Up to and including 6.2
Timeline
- 2026-06-06: disclosed: Initial publication of the CVE record
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/page-list/tags/5.9/page-list.php
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/page-list/tags/5.9/page-list.php
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/page-list/tags/5.9/page-list.php
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/page-list/tags/5.9/page-list.php
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=3552931%40page-list&new=3552931%40page-list&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/22defe19-28ac-43b3-814d-5a2038380adb?source=cve