CVE-2026-27359
Published: 05 March 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-27359 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 14.4th 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-2026-27359 is an Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation vulnerability, classified as Reflected Cross-site Scripting (XSS) under CWE-79, in the Awa Plugins WordPress plugin developed by fox-themes. This issue affects Awa Plugins versions from n/a through 1.4.4 inclusive. The vulnerability was published on 2026-03-05T06:16:25.813 and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.1 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L).
Unauthenticated attackers (PR:N) can exploit this over the network (AV:N) with low attack complexity (AC:L), though it requires user interaction (UI:R), such as a victim visiting a maliciously crafted URL. Exploitation reflects attacker-controlled input into the web page, enabling arbitrary script execution in the victim's browser within the site's context (S:C). This can result in low impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:L/I:L/A:L), such as session hijacking, data theft, or page manipulation for the targeted user.
Patchstack provides details on the vulnerability in their database entry at https://patchstack.com/database/Wordpress/Plugin/awa-plugins/vulnerability/wordpress-awa-plugins-plugin-1-4-4-reflected-cross-site-scripting-xss-vulnerability?_s_id=cve, which security practitioners should review for recommended mitigations and patching guidance.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-9622
Vulnerability details
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in fox-themes Awa Plugins awa-plugins allows Reflected XSS.This issue affects Awa Plugins: from n/a through <= 1.4.4.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Reflected XSS in public-facing WordPress plugin directly enables remote exploitation of the web app (T1190) and arbitrary JavaScript execution in victim browser context (T1059.007), facilitating session hijacking and data theft (T1185).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly requires validation and sanitization of untrusted input before it is reflected into web page output, blocking the reflected XSS payload at its source.
Requires filtering or encoding of information sent to users, preventing attacker-controlled scripts from executing in the victim's browser context.
Enables monitoring and anomaly detection on web requests and responses that could indicate attempted reflected XSS exploitation.