Home/CVE/WordPress Social Warfare Plugin Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability
CVE

CVE-2019-9978

WordPress Social Warfare Plugin Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability

The social-warfare plugin before 3.5.3 for WordPress has stored XSS via the wp-admin/admin-post.php?swp_debug=load_options swp_url parameter, as exploited in the wild in March 2019. This affects Social Warfare and Social Warfare Pro.

MEDIUM · CVSS 6.1 ⚠ CISA KEV EPSS 0.88711
Act now
  • Listed on CISA KEV (known exploited in the wild)
  • SSVC exploitation status: active
  • EPSS ≥ 0.50 - high probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
  • EPSS percentile: top 0% of all CVEs by exploitation likelihood
  • Public exploit or PoC is available
Sigma rules10 YARA rules0
⬢

Required Remediation

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

◆

Threat Actors Linked

1
actorBlackTech
⬡

Weakness Classification

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
▤

Affected Products & Versions

2
warfareplugins social warfare< 3.5.3
warfareplugins social warfare pro< 3.5.3
⚠

Public Exploits & PoCs

9
webappsSocial Warfare WordPress Plugin 3.5.2 - Remote Code Execution (RCE)2025-06-26
webappsWordPress Plugin Social Warfare < 3.5.3 - Remote Code Execution2019-05-03
nucleiWordPress Social Warfare <3.5.3 - Cross-Site Scriptingmedium
pocpacketstormsecurity.com · Wordpress-Social-Warfare-Remote-Code-Execution.htmlpacketstormsecurity.com
pocpacketstormsecurity.com · WordPress-Social-Warfare-3.5.2-Remote-Code-Execution.htmlpacketstormsecurity.com
pocblog.sucuri.net · zero-day-stored-xss-in-social-warfare.htmlblog.sucuri.net
pocwww.cybersecurity-help.cz · SB2019032105www.cybersecurity-help.cz
pocwww.exploit-db.com · 46794www.exploit-db.com
pocwww.pluginvulnerabilities.com · full-disclosure-of-settings-change-persistent-cross-site-...www.pluginvulnerabilities.com
◈

Sigma Hunt Rules

10
Exact rules name this CVE ID. Product rules name an affected product in their title. Related rules cover techniques used by actors who exploited this CVE. Showing the most relevant matches; the complete related set is on the full drill-down.
relatedcriticalAntivirus Password Dumper Detection
relatedcriticalHacktool Execution - Imphash
relatedcriticalHackTool - Rubeus Execution
relatedcriticalPotential Credential Dumping Via LSASS Process Clone
relatedcriticalWCE wceaux.dll Access
relatedcriticalHackTool - Dumpert Process Dumper Default File
▣

Scoring & Timeline

6.1
MEDIUM · CVSS v3.1 · cve@mitre.org
View on NVD
Attack Vector
Network Adjacent Local Physical
Attack Complexity
Low High
Privileges Required
None Low High
User Interaction
None Required
Scope
Unchanged Changed
Confidentiality
None Low High
Integrity
None Low High
Availability
None Low High
Published to NVD24 Mar 2019 · 03:29 PM
CVSS VectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
SSVC triage · cisa-vulnrichment
Exploitation
active
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
SSVC asks the questions that actually drive patch urgency: is it being exploited, can attacks be automated, and how total is the impact.
⚑

Vendor Advisories

1
cisaKEV-CVE-2019-9978
🔗

References & Sources

6
Source URLs (vendor pages, mailing lists, write-ups). Exploit/PoC links are in their own section above to avoid duplication.
https://twitter.com/warfareplugins/status/1108852747099652099Third Party Advisory
https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-warfare/#developersProduct
https://wpvulndb.com/vulnerabilities/9238Broken LinkThird Party Advisory
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2019/03/unpatched-zero-day-vulnerability-in-social-warfare-plugin-exploited-in-the-wild/Third Party Advisory
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/Jun/1Mailing List
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2019-9978US Government Resource
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