CVE-2026-9239

What it is

The Meow Gallery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Attachment Alt Text (aria-label attribute) in all versions up to, and including, 5.5.1 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. The vulnerable code path is only reachable when a gallery item is rendered as a link (i.e., link_href is non-empty), and exploitation relies on the fact that WordPress's sanitize_text_field() strips angle-bracketed tags but preserves double quotes, allowing an attacker to break out of the aria-label attribute context and inject event-handler attributes such as onclick.

At a glance

Exploitability

Can be exploited over the network with a low-privilege account. Limited direct impact.

Exploit odds

0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS).

Fix

No patch or advisory is linked yet. Look at mitigations or restrict exposure.

Timeline

1. 2026-05-21 18:54 UTC ReservedThe CVE id was reserved by its CNA
2. 2026-10-30 18:18 UTC PublishedDisclosed publicly on CVE.org and NVD
3. 2026-10-30 19:20 UTC Last updatedMost recent change to the record

Details

Published

2026-10-30 18:18 UTC

Last modified

2026-10-30 19:20 UTC

Exploit probability

0.3% · EPSS, next 30 days

Weakness

CWE-79 · Cross-site scripting

Record status

Deferred

Attack profile CVSS 3.1 · 6.4

Attack vector

Network

Complexity

Low

Privileges needed

Low

User interaction

None

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

Low

Integrity

Low

Availability

None