Blackhole for Bad Bots <= 3.8 - Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via User-Agent HTTP Header
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Cross-site scripting
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- Low · Low · None
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-79.
Summary
The Blackhole for Bad Bots plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the User-Agent HTTP header in all versions up to and including 3.8. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. The plugin uses sanitize_text_field() when capturing bot data (which strips HTML tags but does not escape HTML entities like double quotes), then stores the data via update_option(). When an administrator views the Bad Bots log page, the stored data is output directly into HTML input value attributes (lines 75-83) without esc_attr() and into HTML span content without esc_html(). This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts that execute when an administrator views the Blackhole Bad Bots admin page.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- Yes
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
No fixed version listed by the sources yet.
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-4329
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-cpmh-vq2q-hhp7
References
Other 12
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a71992e2-fdac-4e89-8867-4b771d9b4374?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/trunk/inc/badbots-register.php#L75
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/trunk/inc/badbots-register.php#L85
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/trunk/inc/badbots-register.php#L79
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/tags/3.8/inc/badbots-register.php#L79
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/tags/3.8/inc/badbots-register.php#L85
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/tags/3.8/inc/badbots-register.php#L75
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/trunk/inc/blackhole-helpers.php#L22
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/tags/3.8/inc/blackhole-helpers.php#L22
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/trunk/inc/blackhole-core.php#L180
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/tags/3.8/inc/blackhole-core.php#L180
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=3487350%40blackhole-bad-bots&new=3487350%40blackhole-bad-bots&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=
More specialk vulnerabilities
- TI-2024-01845 Simple Ajax Chat < 20240223 - Unauthenticated Stored XSS CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.1
- TI-2024-02296 Simple Ajax Chat < 20240412 - Admin+ Stored XSS CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.4
- TI-2024-04645 User Submitted Posts < 20240516 - Admin+ Stored XSS CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 4.8
- TI-2019-15241 User Submitted Posts <= 20190312 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2022-10732 WordPress Simple Ajax Chat plugin <= 20220115 - Sensitive Information Disclosure vulnerability CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2023-24406 WordPress User Submitted Posts Plugin <= 20230902 is vulnerable to Arbitrary File Upload CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
Sources
- CVE-2026-4329 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-4329 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-cpmh-vq2q-hhp7 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences