Vulnerability report

Exploited in the wild High confidence Not in CISA KEV

CVE-2012-20004

K-news WordPress Plugin < 1.1.1 Reflected XSS Cross-Site Scripting

Carles Reverter / K-news · affected before 1.1.1

Watch CVE-2012-20004 Browse KEV feed
Severity
CVSS 5.1 · Medium
Confidence
High
Exploit status
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
0.2%
First observed
—
Last observed
—

Decision summary

What security teams need to know first

Direct answers before the deeper technical record.

What it is

CVE-2012-20004 is an unauthenticated vulnerability affecting Carles Reverter K-news. K-news plugin for WordPress before 1.1.1 contains a reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability that allows unauthenticated...

Is it exploited?

Yes. Previdian tracks this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability. Confidence is high. Also confirmed by third-party sources.

Who is affected?

Carles Reverter / K-news affected before 1.1.1.

What should we do?

Prioritize remediation. Validate affected assets and apply vendor fixes on an accelerated timeline.

Overview

K-news WordPress Plugin < 1.1.1 Reflected XSS Cross-Site Scripting

K-news plugin for WordPress before 1.1.1 contains a reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to inject script by supplying unsanitized input through the 'ff' parameter. Attackers can craft GET requests to /wp-content/plugins/knews/wysiwyg/fontpicker/index.php with malicious 'ff' values echoed into option tags to execute script and steal session cookies.

Exploitation evidence was first observed by the Shadowserver Foundation on 2023-10-19.

Carles Reverter Affected
K-news
Before 1.1.1
View vendor advisory (opens in new tab)
Published
20 Oct 2026
Exploitation Reported
20 Oct 2026
Attack vector
Remote
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
—

Tags

wordpress php

CVE References

Exploitation evidence

Why Previdian marks this CVE as exploited

Third-party attestation and first-party sensor observation are shown separately so teams can judge the evidence chain.

Exploited in the wild

CVE

Recorded 20 Oct 2026

A trusted third party reported exploitation.

Proof of concept available

CVE

Recorded 20 Oct 2026

Public scanner or PoC coverage increases practical exploitability.

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Per-source evidence links for KEV attestations are available through the Previdian Pro API.

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Source Added
CVE First 2026-10-20 20:40 UTC

Detection

Operational artifacts and observed signals

Make the evidence actionable in scanner, SOC, and edge-control workflows.

Observed signals

Request targets
User-Agents
Callback hosts
0
0
0

Request targets and User-Agents available in Pro. Callback host details available in Enterprise.

Scanner coverage

No scanner integrations recorded yet.

Virtual patch status

No Previdian virtual patch is currently available. Future rules ship for ModSecurity, Cloudflare, and AWS WAF.

Learn about virtual patches →

No detection artifacts or sensor request patterns are available for this CVE yet.

Check back as sensor telemetry and scanner integrations are updated.

Risk and context

Severity, weaknesses, and research context

CVSS v4.0

5.1 Medium

Potential damage if exploited. Separate from whether attackers are using it.

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N

EPSS

0.2%

Estimated chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Previdian's warning comes from evidence, not this score.

Weaknesses

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

All CVSS Scores

CVSS v4.0 5.1 Medium

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N

CVSS v3.1 6.1 Medium

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Potential Proof of Concepts

These PoCs are unverified and could contain malware. Use at your own risk.

EDB-37484

cve · Created Unknown

Timeline

From disclosure to observed exploitation

  1. 20:40 UTC

    Public PoC available

    Public proof-of-concept code published

  2. 20:40 UTC

    Added to Previdian KEV Feed

    High-confidence, third-party attested exploitation

  3. 20:31 UTC

    CVE published

    Vulnerability disclosed publicly

  4. 20:25 UTC

    CVE ID reserved

    Identifier reserved by the CNA

Pro API

Automate this intelligence

Confidence, exploit status, sensor telemetry, PoCs, scanner integrations, mentions, and tags are available programmatically for VM, SOC, and CTI workflows.

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  • Evidence confidence and provenance
  • First-party sensor telemetry
  • PoC and scanner references
  • Affected versions and enrichment
  • Automation-ready JSON delivery

GET /api/v2/pro/kevs/CVE-2012-20004

Sample API response 
{
  "cve_id": "CVE-2012-20004",
  "confidence": "High",
  "cvss_score": 5.1,
  "cvss_estimated": false,
  "epss_score": 0.00215,
  "exploit_status": {
    "exploited_in_the_wild": true,
    "active_exploitation_observed": false
  },
  "sensor_telemetry": { "attempts": 0, "sensors": 0 }
}