CVE-2026-116548 in VikRentCar Car Rental Management System Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 10/31/2026
The VikRentCar Car Rental Management System plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'optionals' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 1.4.10 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers 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 • 10/31/2026
The VikRentCar Car Rental Management System is a widely utilized WordPress plugin designed to facilitate car rental operations by providing features such as booking management, fleet tracking, and payment integration. While these functionalities are essential for business owners managing vehicle rentals, the complexity of handling user inputs across various forms can introduce security vulnerabilities if not properly secured. In versions up to 1.4.10, a critical flaw exists within the plugin that allows unauthenticated attackers to perform Stored Cross-Site Scripting attacks. This vulnerability stems from insufficient input sanitization and output escaping mechanisms when processing data submitted through specific endpoints exposed by the plugin.
The technical root cause of this issue lies in how the application handles the 'optionals' parameter during form submissions or API calls associated with car rental configurations. When a user submits data containing malicious JavaScript code within this parameter, the server fails to adequately validate or encode the input before storing it in the database. Consequently, when an administrator or another authorized user later views pages that render these stored values, such as booking details or configuration screens, the browser interprets and executes the injected scripts. Because the payload is stored on the server side rather than being transiently passed via URL parameters, the attack persists until the malicious data is manually removed from the database, making it a persistent threat vector.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to both website administrators and their end-users. An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this flaw without needing valid credentials, lowering the barrier for entry significantly. Once executed, the injected scripts run in the context of the victim's session with elevated privileges if that user is an administrator. This enables attackers to steal administrative cookies or authentication tokens, hijack sessions, deface websites by altering content displayed to visitors, or redirect users to malicious phishing sites designed to harvest sensitive information such as login credentials or financial data. The impact extends beyond simple script execution; it compromises the integrity and confidentiality of the entire WordPress installation hosting the plugin.
This vulnerability aligns with CWE-79, which classifies improper neutralization of input during web page generation known as Cross-site Scripting. Specifically, because the malicious payload is stored in a persistent storage medium like a database for later retrieval and execution, it falls under Stored XSS rather than Reflected or DOM-based variants. In terms of threat modeling frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK, this behavior corresponds to techniques involving client-side injection and potentially credential harvesting through session hijacking. The lack of proper encoding at the point of output rendering allows the browser's parser to treat script tags as executable code rather than plain text data.
To mitigate this vulnerability, immediate action is required for all sites running VikRentCar versions 1.4.10 or earlier. Site administrators should update the plugin to the latest patched version where developers have implemented robust input validation and output encoding practices. Until an upgrade can be performed, temporary mitigations include implementing a Web Application Firewall that filters out common XSS payloads in POST requests targeting known vulnerable endpoints. Additionally, enabling Content Security Policy headers with strict script-src directives can help restrict the execution of unauthorized scripts even if they are injected into the DOM. Regular security audits and code reviews focusing on data flow from user inputs to database storage and subsequent rendering are essential for preventing similar issues in future updates or other plugins used within the WordPress ecosystem.