WordPress security changelog
MEDIUM CVE-2026-3618 Deferred

Columns by BestWebSoft – Additional Columns Plugin for Posts Pages and Widgets: Cross-site scripting

Columns by BestWebSoft – Additional Columns Plugin for Posts Pages and Widgets is affected by cross-site scripting. Exploitation requires at least contributor-level access. Injected script can execute in the affected site's origin when the vulnerable output is viewed. The published affected range is <= 1.0.3.

CVE / CNA score 6.4 CVSS 3.1 · security@wordfence.com
NVD score Pending NVD has not published its own CVSS assessment.
Component
Columns by BestWebSoft – Additional Columns Plugin for Posts Pages and Widgets
Plugin slug
columns-bws
Affected
<= 1.0.3
Safe version
> 1.0.3
Published
Apr 08, 2026
Weakness
CWE-79 — Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

This CVE was published Apr 08, 2026 and is one of 1 known issue for this plugin.

What to do

Update, patch or deactivate.

Update Columns by BestWebSoft – Additional Columns Plugin for Posts Pages and Widgets to a release after 1.0.3, or disable and remove it until a fixed version is available.

A safe version is available, so updating to that version or later is the preferred remediation. If an immediate update is not practical, consider a targeted application patch or temporarily restricting the affected functionality.

Deactivate only when warranted by your risk profile, or when advised by your hosting provider in the limited circumstances where the vulnerability cannot otherwise be mitigated. If you’re unsure which action is appropriate, contact Fused or your hosting provider for guidance.

Source record

Technical description

The Columns by BestWebSoft plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'id' shortcode attribute of the [print_clmns] shortcode in all versions up to and including 1.0.3. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on the 'id' attribute. The shortcode receives the 'id' parameter via shortcode_atts() at line 596 and directly embeds it into HTML output at line 731 (in a div id attribute) and into inline CSS at lines 672-729 without any escaping or sanitization. While the SQL query uses %d to cast the value to an integer for database lookup, the original unsanitized string value of $id is still used in the HTML/CSS output. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. The attack requires that at least one column exists in the plugin (created by an admin), as the SQL query must return results for the output branch to be reached.

CVE / CNA vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

References

Primary and upstream sources