CVE-2026-19985
Description
The Relevanssi – A Better Search plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 4.28.1 via the 's', 'post_types', and 'orderby' request parameters. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping in the relevanssi_debug_array() function in lib/debug.php, which dumps user-supplied query variables through print_r() inside a <pre> block without HTML escaping. The debug path is enabled by supplying the relevanssi_debug=on request parameter when the administrator has previously enabled the 'Debugging mode' setting; the gate itself is a configuration check with no capability, nonce, or logged-in check (the vendor explicitly suppresses nonce verification on that line). This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user into performing an action such as clicking on a specially crafted link.
Predictions
Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.
Mitigations
No mitigations published for this CVE yet.
The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.
Propose a mitigation on Community Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here withsource_tier=community-verified.
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.27.2/lib/debug.php#L27
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.27.2/lib/debug.php#L68
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.27.2/lib/search.php#L132
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.27.2/lib/search.php#L143
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.27.2/lib/search.php#L562
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.28.1/lib/debug.php#L27
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.28.1/lib/debug.php#L68
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.28.1/lib/search.php#L132
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.28.1/lib/search.php#L143
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/relevanssi/tags/4.28.1/lib/search.php#L562
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&new=3650355%40relevanssi%2Ftrunk&old=3529670%40relevanssi%2Ftrunk&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d07fe28c-f76e-42b2-b894-be316004235a?source=cve
CWEs
CWE-79
Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.
Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.