CVE-2026-42678
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 · uneditedImproper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in Liquid Web / StellarWP GiveWP allows DOM-Based XSS. This issue affects GiveWP: from n/a through 4.14.5.
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 confidenceDOM-based Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in GiveWP plugin allows attackers to inject malicious JavaScript through unsanitized user input that gets rendered in the page's DOM. This occurs during web page generation where the plugin fails to properly neutralize special characters in input before outputting them.
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
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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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Check installed GiveWP versionIn WordPress admin, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins > GiveWP and note the version number. Alternatively, check the main plugin file (givewp/includes/class-give.php) or run: wp plugin list --plugin=giveAffected if The installed version does not match the latest patched version available from the GiveWP repository
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Verify donation forms are publicly accessibleVisit your WordPress site and navigate to any published GiveWP donation form page. Confirm the form loads and accepts user input.Affected if Public-facing donation forms exist and are active on the site
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Inspect form input handling in plugin sourceLocate the GiveWP plugin files that handle form submissions and user input (typically in includes/forms/ or includes/gateways/ directories). Look for how donor name, email, amount, or custom fields receive and process input.Affected if The code processes user input without using functions like sanitize_text_field(), esc_html(), or esc_attr() before output
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Check DOM output for unencoded user inputSubmit a test donation with a specially crafted input containing characters like < > " ' and use browser developer tools (Inspect Element or Console) to view the page source where that input appears in the DOM.Affected if User-supplied data appears in the rendered HTML without proper encoding or escaping
User is affected if GiveWP is installed with a version prior to the patched release and the plugin's donation forms are publicly accessible, allowing unsanitized user input to render in the browser DOM.
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 dataUpdate GiveWP to the latest version beyond 4.14.5 which contains the fix for this XSS vulnerability. If immediate update is not possible, implement output encoding and input validation on all user-supplied data rendered by the plugin.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,160.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-42678 — 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-2026-42678 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data