WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities

Better Messages < 2.15.20 - Authenticated (Administrator+) Arbitrary File Deletion via Path Traversal via 'file' Parameter

Description

The Better Messages – Chat Rooms, Group Chat, Private Messages & AI Chat Bots plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary file deletion due to insufficient file path validation in the delete_sticker function in all versions up to, and including, 2.15.19. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with administrator-level access and above, to delete arbitrary files on the server, which can easily lead to remote code execution when the right file is deleted (such as wp-config.php). The prefix check intended to restrict deletion to the uploads directory can be bypassed by crafting a URL that begins with the legitimate uploads base URL but embeds ../ traversal sequences in the path portion, as the normalize_sticker function only applies esc_url_raw(), which does not strip ../ sequences, allowing the traversal payload to be stored verbatim in WordPress options.

Affects Plugins

Fixed in 2.15.20

References

Classification

Type
LFI
OWASP top 10
CWE
CVSS

Miscellaneous

Original Researcher
Wordfence PRISM
Verified
No

Timeline

Publicly Published
2026-07-27 (about 2 months ago)
Added
2026-07-27 (about 2 months ago)
Last Updated
2026-07-28 (about 2 months ago)

Other