CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Security & Risk Analysis

wordpress.org/plugins/citation-reference-manager

Add citations, numbered footnotes, tooltips, and bibliographies to your WordPress content. Manage all your references in one place and generate APA, M …

70 active installs v3.2.1 PHP 7.4+ WP 6.3+ Updated May 26, 2026

bibliographyblockscitationsfootnotestooltips

A · Safe

CVEs total0

Unpatched0

Last CVENever

Plugin page Download

Safety Verdict

Is CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Safe to Use in 2026?

Generally Safe

Score 100/100

CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager has no known CVEs and is actively maintained. It's a solid choice for most WordPress installations.

No known CVEs Updated 3mo ago

Risk Assessment

The citation-reference-manager plugin v1.0.0 exhibits a strong security posture in several key areas. It demonstrates excellent adherence to secure coding practices by utilizing prepared statements for 86% of its SQL queries and ensuring 100% of its outputs are properly escaped. The presence of nonce and capability checks on its entry points, coupled with the absence of dangerous functions, file operations, and external HTTP requests, further contributes to its security. However, the taint analysis reveals two flows with unsanitized paths, which are flagged as high severity. While there is no historical vulnerability data, these taint flows represent a significant area of concern that needs immediate attention. The overall security is good, but the identified high-severity taint flows are a critical weakness that undermines the otherwise robust implementation.

Key Concerns

High severity unsanitized paths in taint analysis
Moderate percentage of SQL without prepare

Vulnerabilities

None known

CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Security Vulnerabilities

No known vulnerabilities — this is a good sign.

Version History

CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Release Timeline

v3.2.1Current

v3.2.0

v3.1.1

v3.1.0

v3.0.0

v2.0.0

v1.0.0

Code Analysis

Analyzed Mar 16, 2026

CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Code Analysis

Dangerous Functions

Raw SQL Queries

12 prepared

Unescaped Output

43 escaped

Nonce Checks

Capability Checks

File Operations

External Requests

Bundled Libraries

SQL Query Safety

86% prepared14 total queries

Output Escaping

100% escaped43 total outputs

Data Flows · Security

2 unsanitized

Data Flow Analysis

3 flows2 with unsanitized paths

ajax_save_row (reference-manager.php:341)

Source (user input) Sink (dangerous op) Sanitizer Transform Unsanitized Sanitized

Attack Surface

CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Attack Surface

Entry Points5

Unprotected0

AJAX Handlers 2

authwp_ajax_citekit_remove_citereference-manager.php:47

authwp_ajax_citekit_save_rowreference-manager.php:48

Shortcodes 3

[cite] reference-manager.php:52

[tooltip] reference-manager.php:53

[bibliography] reference-manager.php:54

WordPress Hooks 9

actionwp_enqueue_scriptsreference-manager.php:35

actionadmin_enqueue_scriptsreference-manager.php:36

actioncitekit_daily_cleanupreference-manager.php:41

actionsave_postreference-manager.php:43

actionadd_meta_boxesreference-manager.php:44

actionsave_postreference-manager.php:45

actionadmin_menureference-manager.php:50

actionsave_postreference-manager.php:162

actionsave_postreference-manager.php:301

Scheduled Events 1

citekit_daily_cleanup

Maintenance & Trust

CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Maintenance & Trust

Maintenance Signals

WordPress version tested7.0.2

Last updatedMay 26, 2026

PHP min version7.4

Downloads1K

Community Trust

Rating100/100

Number of ratings2

Active installs70

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Citations

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Developer Profile

CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager Developer Profile

writerspress

2 plugins · 70 total installs

trust score

Avg Security Score

100/100

Avg Patch Time

30 days

View full developer profile

Detection Fingerprints

How We Detect CiteKit – Footnotes, Tooltips, Citations, Bibliography & References Manager

Patterns used to identify this plugin on WordPress sites during automated security audits and web crawling.

Asset Fingerprints

Asset Paths

/wp-content/plugins/citation-reference-manager/assets/css/tooltip.css/wp-content/plugins/citation-reference-manager/assets/js/tooltip.js/wp-content/plugins/citation-reference-manager/assets/css/src.css/wp-content/plugins/citation-reference-manager/assets/js/src.js

Script Paths

/wp-content/plugins/citation-reference-manager/assets/js/tooltip.js/wp-content/plugins/citation-reference-manager/assets/js/src.js

Version Parameters

citation-reference-manager/assets/css/tooltip.css?ver=citation-reference-manager/assets/js/tooltip.js?ver=citation-reference-manager/assets/css/src.css?ver=citation-reference-manager/assets/js/src.js?ver=

HTML / DOM Fingerprints

CSS Classes

citebox

Data Attributes

data-uuid

JS Globals

citekitAjax

Shortcode Output

[cite][tooltip][bibliography]

FAQ