Executive brief
PbootCMS is a content management system used to build and manage website content. A flaw in how the system processes article titles allows users with editing permissions to inject malicious code that executes in the browsers of all visitors viewing the affected articles. This could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data, theft of user sessions, or phishing attacks against site visitors.
Technical details
This is a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the template rendering component. The root cause is an asymmetric encode/decode design: article titles are HTML-encoded on input (via htmlspecialchars) and stored in the database, but on frontend display they are decoded (via htmlspecialchars_decode) and output directly to templates without secondary filtering. Unlike the content field which calls filter_html(), the title field bypasses all output sanitization. An attacker with content editing permissions (standard editor role) can inject arbitrary HTML/JavaScript into the title field; when the article is displayed on detail pages, list pages, or the homepage, the payload executes in all visitors' browsers. The vulnerability affects PbootCMS up to at least 3.2.22 and is confirmed exploitable with public proof-of-concept code available.
Affected products
- PbootCMS PbootCMS up to 3.2.22
Timeline
- 2026-08-19: disclosed: GitHub issue opened reporting stored XSS vulnerability
- 2026-09-16: advisory: CVE-2026-92381 published