doctorwp Breaking News WP Plugin up to 1.3 on WordPress AJAX Endpoint include brnwp_theme path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in doctorwp Breaking News WP Plugin up to 1.3 on WordPress. It has been classified as critical. Impacted is the function include of the component AJAX Endpoint. This manipulation of the argument brnwp_theme causes path traversal. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2026-4280. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in doctorwp Breaking News WP Plugin up to 1.3 on WordPress and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function include of the component AJAX Endpoint. The manipulation of the argument brnwp_theme with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

The Breaking News WP plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 1.3. This is due to the brnwp_ajax_form AJAX endpoint lacking both authorization checks and CSRF verification, combined with insufficient path validation when the brnwp_theme option value is passed directly to an include() statement in the brnwp_show_breaking_news_wp() shortcode handler. While sanitize_text_field() is applied to user input, it does not strip directory traversal sequences (../). This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to overwrite the brnwp_theme option with a directory traversal payload (e.g., ../../../../etc/passwd) and subsequently trigger file inclusion of arbitrary files on the server when the shortcode is rendered.

The weakness was published by Nguyen Minh Toan. The advisory is shared at wordfence.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-4280 since 03/16/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1006 for this issue.

Upgrading to version 1.3 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• WordPress Plugin

Vendor

• doctorwp

Name

• Breaking News WP Plugin

Version

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 1.2
• 1.3

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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