The Events Calendar <= 6.17.3 - Unauthenticated Code Injection to Remote Code Execution via Widget 'classes' Map Callable Invocation

9.8
Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
CVE CVE-2026-78159
CVSS 9.8 (Critical)
Publicly Published September 11, 2026
Last Updated September 16, 2026
Researchers Chloe Chamberland - Wordfence
Wordfence Argus - Wordfence

Description

The "The Events Calendar" plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to, and including, 6.17.3 via the parse_array function. This is due to insufficient validation of the widget 'classes' map, allowing a plain-array payload to bypass the is_safe_widget_instance() object check and reach the callable-invocation sink in Element_Classes::parse_array(). This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute code on the server. Exploitation requires that the targeted site has comments enabled on tribe_events posts and that at least one comment containing a crafted wp:legacy-widget block has been submitted, as the attack chain is triggered when do_blocks() processes the single-event HTML including the comment area.

Wordfence blocked 6,170 attacks targeting this vulnerability in the past 24 hours.

References

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Vulnerability Details for The Events Calendar

Software Type Plugin
Software Slug the-events-calendar (view on wordpress.org)
Patched? Yes
Remediation Update to version 6.17.3.1, or a newer patched version
Affected Version
  • <= 6.17.3
Patched Version
  • 6.17.3.1

Recent vulnerabilities in The Events Calendar

# Title CVE ID CVSS Researchers Date
1 The Events Calendar <= 6.17.4 - Unauthenticated PHP Object Injection CVE-2026-95606 8.1 Naoya Takahashi (nakko) October 2, 2026
2 The Events Calendar <= 6.17.5 - Missing Authorization CVE-2026-97285 4.3 Erik Debye September 30, 2026
3 The Events Calendar 6.12.0 - 6.17.5 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary Shortcode Execution CVE-2026-84740 6.5 Jakub Herman September 28, 2026
4 The Events Calendar 6.15.0 - 6.17.4.1 - Missing Authorization CVE-2026-84742 4.3 Jashid Sany September 21, 2026
5 The Events Calendar 4.5 - 6.17.4.1 - Unauthenticated Information Exposure CVE-2026-84741 5.3 Kaveesha Nirmal September 21, 2026
6 The Events Calendar 6.15.16.1 - 6.17.4.1 - Missing Authorization CVE-2026-84743 4.3 Mohammed Abd Alrahman September 21, 2026
7 The Events Calendar <= 6.17.4 - Unauthenticated PHP Object Injection to Remote Code Execution CVE-2026-78006 9.8 Chloe Chamberland, Wordfence Argus September 11, 2026
8 The Events Calendar < 6.17.3.1 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Information Exposure CVE-2026-84745 4.3 Mohammed Abd Alrahman September 5, 2026
9 The Events Calendar <= 6.17.2 - Unauthenticated PHP Object Injection CVE-2026-78265 8.1 Udin Chan August 24, 2026
10 The Events Calendar <= 6.16.5.0 - Missing Authorization CVE-2026-13390 5.3 Haitam Lazaar July 6, 2026

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