CVE-2025-26981
Published: 25 February 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-26981 is a high-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 29.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-15 (Information Output Filtering).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-26981 is an Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation vulnerability, classified as Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) under CWE-79, affecting the Web Accessibility By accessiBe WordPress plugin developed by accessiBe. This issue impacts all versions of the plugin up to and including 2.5. The vulnerability has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.1, reflecting its high severity due to network accessibility and scope change.
A remote attacker with no privileges required can exploit this vulnerability over the network with low complexity by tricking a user into interacting with malicious content, such as clicking a crafted link. Successful exploitation enables the attacker to inject and execute arbitrary scripts in the victim's browser context, potentially leading to low-level impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, including theft of session data or minor page manipulation, with the attack scope expanded to the browser environment.
The Patchstack advisory at https://patchstack.com/database/Wordpress/Plugin/accessibe/vulnerability/wordpress-web-accessibility-by-accessibe-plugin-2-5-reflected-cross-site-scripting-xss-vulnerability?_s_id=cve provides details on this WordPress plugin vulnerability, including recommended mitigations such as updating to a patched version beyond 2.5. Security practitioners should verify plugin updates and apply input sanitization best practices for web accessibility tools.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-5418
Vulnerability details
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in accessiBe Web Accessibility By accessiBe accessibe allows Reflected XSS.This issue affects Web Accessibility By accessiBe: from n/a through <= 2.5.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Reflected XSS in public-facing WordPress plugin directly enables exploitation of internet-facing web apps (T1190) and arbitrary JavaScript execution in victim browser context (T1059.007).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly mitigates the improper neutralization of input by requiring validation of all user inputs to block malicious scripts in reflected XSS attacks.
Prevents execution of injected scripts by filtering and encoding information outputs during web page generation.
Ensures timely remediation of the specific XSS flaw in the accessiBe plugin through identification, reporting, and patching.