CVE-2026-13407 in Royal Elementor Addons Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 09/16/2026
The Royal Elementor Addons WordPress plugin before 1.7.1067 does not properly sanitize and escape values submitted through its form widget before including them in the body of administrator notification emails, allowing unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary HTML into emails sent to the site administrator on form submission.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/16/2026
The vulnerability identified within the Royal Elementor Addons WordPress plugin prior to version 1.7.1067 represents a critical failure in input validation and output encoding mechanisms specifically affecting the email notification subsystem of its form widget functionality. This flaw allows unauthenticated attackers, who do not require any valid credentials or login privileges, to manipulate data submitted through public-facing forms on a WordPress site. The core technical deficiency lies in the plugin's handling of user-supplied content during the process of generating administrative emails. When a visitor submits a form, the plugin collects various fields and constructs an email message intended for the website administrator. However, the values extracted from these submissions are not properly sanitized to remove potentially malicious code nor are they escaped using appropriate encoding functions before being embedded directly into the HTML body of the notification email. This lack of rigorous data handling creates a direct pathway for Cross-Site Scripting attacks targeting the site's administrative staff.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability is classified under CWE-79, which denotes Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation commonly known as Cross Site Scripting. The specific variant here involves stored or reflected XSS depending on how the email content is rendered by the administrator's mail client or webmail interface. Because WordPress administrators often access emails through browser-based interfaces such as Gmail, Outlook.com, or self-hosted webmail solutions like Roundcube or SquirrelMail, these environments typically render HTML content within an iframe or a sandboxed context that may still execute scripts if security headers are not strictly enforced. By injecting arbitrary JavaScript code into the email body, an attacker can cause this script to execute in the victim's browser session while they are viewing the notification. This execution occurs with the privileges of the administrator account associated with the email address receiving the message, thereby elevating the attack from a simple data injection to a full privilege escalation scenario if the recipient holds administrative rights on the WordPress installation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and multifaceted. Once an attacker successfully injects malicious scripts into these emails, they can perform actions that compromise the integrity and confidentiality of the entire website ecosystem. Common exploitation vectors include stealing session cookies or authentication tokens via JavaScript's document.cookie property, which could allow the attacker to hijack the administrator's active session and gain unauthorized access to the WordPress dashboard without needing credentials. Furthermore, attackers can redirect users to phishing pages designed to harvest login details for other services if the email client displays links within the injected content. In more sophisticated attacks, the script could exfiltrate sensitive data present in the form submissions themselves, such as personal identifiable information of site visitors, leading to potential violations of privacy regulations like GDPR or CCPA. The ability to execute arbitrary code also opens doors for further malware distribution if the email client allows attachment execution based on content type manipulation within the injected HTML payload.
This vulnerability aligns with several tactics and techniques described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework for enterprise security, particularly those related to Initial Access and Credential Access. It maps closely to T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter where JavaScript is used as a vector for execution, and potentially T1534 Internal Spearphishing if the attack relies on social engineering through compromised emails. The lack of authentication required makes this an attractive target for automated scanning tools that probe WordPress installations for vulnerable plugins, allowing attackers to compromise sites at scale with minimal effort.
To mitigate this risk, immediate action is required by site administrators and developers. The primary remediation step is to update the Royal Elementor Addons plugin to version 1.7.1067 or later, where these sanitization and escaping issues have been addressed in the codebase. Developers should ensure that all user-supplied data entering any part of an application pipeline undergoes strict validation against expected formats and types before processing. Furthermore, when outputting dynamic content into HTML contexts such as email bodies, developers must utilize context-appropriate encoding functions provided by secure libraries or frameworks to neutralize special characters like angle brackets, ampersands, and quotes that could be interpreted as code rather than text. Implementing Content Security Policy headers in webmail interfaces where possible can also provide an additional layer of defense against script execution even if injection occurs. Regular security audits and penetration testing focusing on form handling and email generation modules are recommended to identify similar weaknesses across the application stack before they can be exploited by malicious actors seeking unauthorized access or data theft.