CVE-2019-20041 Cross-site scripting in n/a

What is CVE-2019-20041?

CVE-2019-20041 is a critical cross-site scripting vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 27 Dec 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

wp_kses_bad_protocol in wp-includes/kses.php in WordPress before 5.3.1 mishandles the HTML5 colon named entity, allowing attackers to bypass input sanitization, as demonstrated by the javascript: substring.

Weakness: CWE-20

Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-20041?

It affects 2 products.

Products include Debian Debian Linux, Wordpress Wordpress.

How do I fix CVE-2019-20041?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Escape output for the context it lands in and set a strict Content Security Policy. Upgrading the affected component is the real fix. More about Cross-site scripting.

Is CVE-2019-20041 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-20041 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

• CVE-2015-3306 ProFTPD Improper Access Control Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2025-49113 RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data Exploited Critical 9.9
• CVE-2026-24061 GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2025-39682 Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2024-9680 Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free Exploited Critical 9.8

All Debian Debian Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2019-20041, DLA-2067-1, GHSA-8j68-mq56-8vpm, UBUNTU-CVE-2019-20041.