CVE-2026-19801: wordpress betterlinks Missing Authorization

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-19801 is a medium (CVSS 4.3) Missing Authorization vulnerability in wordpress betterlinks. EPSS estimates a 0.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 19.9% of scored vulnerabilities. Fixed in 3.1.1.

Timeline

1. 25-08-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 25-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

The BetterLinks – Link Shortener, Link Cloaking, Redirects, Affiliate Link Manager & MCP plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 3.1.0. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to create arbitrary BetterLinks short URLs with attacker-controlled slugs and redirect destinations, enabling phishing and SEO abuse. Exploitation requires the Fluent Boards companion plugin to be installed and active (so that the FLUENT_BOARDS constant is defined), and is further facilitated by the betterlinks_admin_nonce nonce being emitted on every frontend page via wp_localize_script, making it accessible to any authenticated user.

• CWE-862Missing AuthorizationThe product does not perform an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.