CVE-2024-1989 in Social Sharing Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 03/06/2024
The Social Sharing Plugin – Sassy Social Share plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the plugin's 'Sassy_Social_Share' shortcode in all versions up to, and including, 3.3.58 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on user supplied attributes such as 'url'. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with contributor-level and above permissions to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/12/2026
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-1989 affects the Social Sharing Plugin – Sassy Social Share WordPress plugin, specifically targeting versions up to and including 3.3.58. This represents a critical security flaw that undermines the integrity of web applications by enabling malicious actors to inject persistent malicious scripts into the plugin's shortcode functionality. The vulnerability exists within the core processing logic of the Sassy_Social_Share shortcode implementation, where user-supplied parameters are not adequately validated or sanitized before being rendered in web pages. The issue manifests when attackers leverage the plugin's administrative interface to insert malicious code through the url attribute parameter, creating a persistent cross-site scripting vector that can compromise user sessions and execute unauthorized commands.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs through the plugin's insufficient input sanitization mechanisms and inadequate output escaping procedures. When an authenticated user with contributor-level permissions or higher creates or modifies content using the Sassy_Social_Share shortcode, the system fails to properly validate the url attribute parameter against malicious input patterns. This weakness allows attackers to inject JavaScript code that gets stored within the plugin's data structures and subsequently executed whenever legitimate users access pages containing the compromised shortcode. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which categorizes cross-site scripting flaws as weaknesses in input validation and output escaping, specifically targeting the failure to sanitize user-supplied data before incorporating it into dynamic web content.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates significant risk for WordPress installations that utilize the affected plugin, as it enables authenticated attackers to establish persistent malicious presence within the application environment. The privilege requirement of contributor-level access means that even users with limited administrative capabilities can exploit this vulnerability, potentially compromising the entire WordPress installation. Attackers can leverage this vector to perform session hijacking, deface websites, steal sensitive user information, or redirect visitors to malicious domains. The stored nature of the XSS vulnerability means that the malicious scripts remain active until manually removed, creating an ongoing threat that can affect multiple users over extended periods.
The impact extends beyond immediate security concerns to encompass broader compliance and operational risks for organizations relying on WordPress platforms. This vulnerability creates opportunities for attackers to escalate privileges, conduct data exfiltration, or establish backdoors within the WordPress environment. Organizations must consider the potential for cascading effects where compromised WordPress installations serve as entry points for broader network infiltration. The vulnerability's presence in widely-used social sharing plugins increases the attack surface significantly, as these components are often integrated across multiple websites and applications, amplifying the potential damage from a single exploitation event. Mitigation strategies should include immediate plugin updates to versions that address the sanitization and escaping deficiencies, along with enhanced monitoring of user activities and implementation of web application firewalls to detect and prevent malicious shortcode injection attempts.
Security professionals should reference ATT&CK techniques related to web application exploitation and privilege escalation when analyzing incidents involving this vulnerability. The vulnerability demonstrates characteristics of T1059.007 (Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript) and T1547.001 (Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder) through potential malicious script execution and persistence mechanisms. Organizations should implement comprehensive security monitoring that includes detection of unusual shortcode usage patterns and user behavior analytics to identify potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of principle of least privilege enforcement and regular security audits of third-party plugins to prevent similar issues in other components of the WordPress ecosystem.