Visitors OnlineWordPress extension · Bestwebsoft

CVE-2017-18537

MEDIUM · 6.1 CVSS v3.0 Published 2019-08-21
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.0.0 or later.
See remediation →
68/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The visitors-online plugin before 1.0.0 for WordPress has multiple XSS issues.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

The visitors-online WordPress plugin before version 1.0.0 contains multiple Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities, where user-supplied input is not properly sanitized or escaped before being rendered in web pages, allowing injection of malicious scripts.

MitigationUpdate the visitors-online plugin to version 1.0.0 or later to receive the security patches; if no patched version is available, remove the plugin entirely.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Visitors OnlineWordPress extension
Affected:< 1.0.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Locate the visitors-online plugin files
    Check your WordPress installation's wp-content/plugins/ directory for a folder containing 'visitors-online' or similar naming
    Affected if The plugin folder exists in the plugins directory
  2. Identify the installed plugin version
    Open the main plugin PHP file or readme.txt within the plugin folder and locate the version number in the plugin header
    Affected if The version listed is below 1.0.0 (for example: 0.9.x, 0.8.x, or any version number less than 1.0.0)
  3. Verify the plugin is active
    Log into the WordPress admin dashboard and navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins, or query the wp_options table for the active_plugins option
    Affected if The visitors-online plugin is enabled/active on the site

Your site is affected if the Bestwebsoft Visitors Online plugin is installed, active, and running a version lower than 1.0.0, as this version range contains the unsanitized user input that allows XSS injection.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.0.0 or later
Fixed in 1.0.0
Interim mitigation

Update the visitors-online plugin to version 1.0.0 or later to receive the security patches; if no patched version is available, remove the plugin entirely.

Fix this in Visitors Online Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,240
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,984.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-18537 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-18537 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data