ckeditor-wordcount-plugin vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting in Source Mode of EditorGHSA-q9w4-w667-qqj4
MEDIUMFix: w8tcha/CKEditor-WordCount-Plugin@0f03b3eGHSA-q9w4-w667-qqj4 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in ckeditor-wordcount-plugin. A fix is available for ckeditor-wordcount-plugin — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-q9w4-w667-qqj4.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
ckeditor-wordcount-pluginnpmDescription
ckeditor-wordcount-plugin is an open source WordCount Plugin for CKEditor. It has been discovered that the ckeditor-wordcount-plugin plugin for CKEditor4 is susceptible to cross-site scripting when switching to the source code mode. This issue has been addressed in version 1.17.12 of the ckeditor-wordcount-plugin plugin and users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | ckeditor-wordcount-plugin | all versions | 1.17.12npm install ckeditor-wordcount-plugin@1.17.12 |
Affected Products
ckeditor-wordcount-pluginckeditor-wordcount-plugin_projectDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ckeditor-wordcount-plugin, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ckeditor-wordcount-plugin to 1.17.12 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-q9w4-w667-qqj4 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Escape or sanitise the affected output on the server side rather than relying on client-side filtering, and add a Content-Security-Policy that blocks inline script execution so injected markup cannot run even if it reaches the page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-q9w4-w667-qqj4 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.