---
id: CVE-2026-18385
title: >-
  The The Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form,
  User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress plugin for WordPress is
  vulnerable to arbitrary shortcode execution in all versions up to, and
  including, 4.16.…
summary: >-
  The The Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form,
  User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress plugin for WordPress is
  vulnerable to arbitrary shortcode execution in all versions up to, and
  including, 4.16.…
severity: medium
cvss: 5.4
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N'
cwe:
  - CWE-94
published: '2026-08-16'
updated: '2026-08-16'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-18385'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/Classes/RegistrationAuth.php#L170
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/ShortcodeParser/Builder/FrontendProfileBuilder.php#L286
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/ShortcodeParser/MemberDirectoryTag.php#L98
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.15/src/Themes/DragDrop/MemberDirectoryListing.php#L90
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/Classes/RegistrationAuth.php#L170
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/ShortcodeParser/Builder/FrontendProfileBuilder.php#L286
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/ShortcodeParser/MemberDirectoryTag.php#L98
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-user-avatar/tags/4.16.19/src/Themes/DragDrop/MemberDirectoryListing.php#L90
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3635466%40wp-user-avatar&new=3635466%40wp-user-avatar
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/345f3354-d2cb-4b92-a25d-9551a5992919?source=cve
    label: security@wordfence.com
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.00522
epssPercentile: 0.4181
ingestedAt: '2026-08-16T14:39:12.115Z'
---

## Overview

The The Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary shortcode execution in all versions up to, and including, 4.16.19. This is due to the software allowing users to execute an action that does not properly validate a value before running do_shortcode. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to execute arbitrary shortcodes. The partial mitigation introduced via strip_shortcodes() on [profile-first-name] and [profile-last-name] can be bypassed through the [profile-display-name format="first_last_names"] render path, the [profile-bio] render path (which re-fetches the raw description meta), and the double-bracket escape sequence [[tag]], all of which allow attacker-controlled shortcode text to reach the outer do_shortcode() call.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.