No External Links vulnerability

The No External Links plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Log URL via /goto/{base64} Redirect in all versions up to, and including, 5.2.0 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. This is only exploitable when the administrator has enabled the 'Link Encoding: Base64' option in the plugin settings.

Published 2 Oct 2026Updated 3 Oct 20266 sources
CVSS 7.2

What happened

The No External Links plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Log URL via /goto/{base64} Redirect in all versions up to, and including, 5.2.0 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. This is only exploitable when the administrator has enabled the 'Link Encoding: Base64' option in the plugin settings.

Affected versions

No External Links: 0 through 5.2.0 (semver) Fixed: See vendor advisory.

Why it matters

Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.

Detection & mitigation

  • Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
  • Review affected product exposure and access logs.

Public PoC references

No public PoC reference has passed the current publication threshold.