Path Traversal in Doctorwp Breaking News Wp

CVE-2026-4280

The Breaking News WP plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 1.3. This is due to the brnwp_ajax_form AJAX endpoint lacking both authorization checks and CSRF verification, combined with insufficient path validation when the brnwp_theme option value is passed directly to an include() statement in the brnwp_show_breaking_news_wp() shortcode handler. While sanitize_text_field() is applied to user input, it does not strip directory traversal sequences (../). This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to overwrite the brnwp_theme option with a directory traversal payload (e.g., ../../../../etc/passwd) and subsequently trigger file inclusion of arbitrary files on the server when the shortcode is rendered.

Vulnerability class: Path Traversal (Directory Traversal)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.008 (56.7th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 57th percentile — 56.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-4280: held from 0.008 to 0.008.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.008 · newest: 0.008 · change: +0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-4280?
CVE-2026-4280 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Doctorwp Breaking News Wp, classified under Path Traversal. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2026-04-22.
How severe is CVE-2026-4280?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.