WordPress WP Statistics Plugin Stored XSS via UTM Parameters

The WP Statistics – Simple, privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'utm_campaign' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 14.16.8 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. The payload can be planted without authentication via the public /wp-statistics/v2/hit REST endpoint, because the required signature is exposed on the public homepage and a base64-encoded page_uri POST parameter overrides the previously sanitized REQUEST_URI, allowing the malicious utm_campaign value to bypass sanitization and be stored in the database.

Casky was already ahead

This CVE exploits attack patterns that Casky's 322matched skills already investigate — long before this vulnerability was disclosed. Claude's reasoning model maps these techniques to MITRE ATT&CK, so practitioners who ran these skills have already seen the threat behaviour in their findings.

Analysis

WP Statistics, a popular WordPress plugin providing privacy-friendly analytics, contains a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in versions up to 14.16.8. The vulnerability exists in the 'utm_campaign' parameter, which fails to properly sanitize and escape user input before storing and displaying it. Because the vulnerability is stored rather than reflected, malicious scripts persist in the database and execute for any user who accesses an affected page—making this a high-impact threat. The attack requires no authentication, meaning any unauthenticated attacker can inject arbitrary JavaScript into publicly accessible pages. WordPress site owners running vulnerable versions of WP Statistics are at immediate risk, as are their visitors who may be redirected to phishing pages, have credentials stolen, or suffer malware infection.

Casky's 322 mapped skills leverage Claude AI's extended reasoning to identify the attack patterns underlying this CVE across MITRE ATT&CK tactics TA0001 (Initial Access) and TA0043 (Reconnaissance). Practitioners using Casky would see detection alerts flagging improper input validation in parameter handling (CWE-79 indicator), suspicious utm_campaign payloads containing script tags or event handlers, and anomalous database writes containing unescaped HTML/JavaScript. The platform's skills would correlate these signals with known exploitation patterns—such as attackers probing public plugin endpoints and crafting malicious campaign parameters—to surface this threat before stored payloads execute at scale. Practitioners would receive findings highlighting the plugin version, affected parameters, and recommended immediate mitigation steps including plugin updates or deactivation.

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Casky Risk Score

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EPSS Probability

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Shodan Exposure

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GreyNoise Signal

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322 Casky skills cover this attack pattern

These skills use Claude AI's reasoning model to surface findings in the same attack categories as CVE-2026-15780.

Abuse of Public-Facing API: Mobile API Abuse

mobile security · low

Run

abusing-dpapi-for-credential-access

red teaming · high

Run

abusing-shadow-credentials-for-privesc

red teaming · high

Run

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

TA0001 TA0043

Investigate the attack patterns behind CVE-2026-15780

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