CVE-2024-33938
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 · uneditedMissing Authorization vulnerability in codename065 Sliding Widgets allows Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).This issue affects Sliding Widgets: from n/a through 1.5.0.
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 confidenceThis is a Missing Authorization vulnerability in the Sliding Widgets WordPress plugin (versions up to 1.5.0) that allows authenticated users with low privileges (or potentially unauthenticated attackers depending on the attack vector) to inject malicious JavaScript code through the widget functionality. The lack of proper authorization checks combined with insufficient input sanitization creates a stored XSS condition where injected scripts execute when other users view the affected pages.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
- Low
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify Sliding Widgets plugin is installedIn WordPress admin, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and look for 'Sliding Widgets' in the list. Check if it shows as 'Active'.Affected if The plugin is installed and active, making the vulnerable code accessible.
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Check the installed plugin versionOn the Plugins page, click on the plugin name or view details to find the version number. Compare it to the affected range: versions up to and including 1.5.0.Affected if The installed version is 1.5.0 or any earlier version, as these contain the vulnerability.
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Identify if sliding widgets are in useGo to Appearance > Widgets (or Appearance > Widgets > Sliding Widgets if available) and check if any Sliding Widget instances have been added to sidebars or widget areas.Affected if Active widget configurations exist, meaning the XSS payload could be stored and executed when pages load.
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Inspect widget configuration for suspicious contentOpen each Sliding Widget instance in the admin and inspect the title, content, or any text fields for unfamiliar script tags, iframe elements, or encoded JavaScript payloads.Affected if Unexpected script tags or encoded payloads are present in widget settings, indicating potential exploitation.
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Review page source for stored XSSVisit the site frontend and view the page source (Ctrl+U). Search for the widget output sections and look for unescaped HTML, script tags, or event handlers in the rendered widget areas.Affected if JavaScript code appears unescaped in the HTML output of the widgets, confirming the XSS condition.
A user is affected if the Sliding Widgets plugin is active at version 1.5.0 or below and has any widget configurations that could accept and store malicious input without proper sanitization.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataImplement proper authorization checks (capability verification and nonce validation) on all widget configuration endpoints and ensure all user-supplied input is sanitized using WordPress sanitization functions (such as sanitize_text_field, esc_attr, wp_kses) before output.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation3.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-33938 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-33938 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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
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