CVE-2026-4329 | Blackhole for Bad Bots <= 3.8 - Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via User-Agent HTTP Header

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.

Published: 2026-03-26 Last update: 2026-04-24 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-4329 is rated Moderate Risk (41.6/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.16%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-4329

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-04-01 0.12% 0.16% +0.04%
2 2026-03-26 0.12%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-4329

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.2 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 2.7 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-4329

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-4329

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2026-4329

URL Tags
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/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/blackhole-core.php#L180
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/badbots-register.php#L75
https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/trunk/inc/badbots-register.php#L79
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/blackhole-core.php#L180
https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blackhole-bad-bots/trunk/inc/blackhole-helpers.php#L22
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=
https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a71992e2-fdac-4e89-8867-4b771d9b4374?source=cve
cvelogic Threat Intelligence