CVE-2022-1165: Blackhole for Bad Bots < 3.3.2 - Arbitrary IP Address Blocking via IP Spoofing

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.1 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2022-04-04 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-639

Description

The Blackhole for Bad Bots WordPress plugin before 3.3.2 uses headers such as CF-CONNECTING-IP, CLIENT-IP etc to determine the IP address of requests hitting the blackhole URL, which allows them to be spoofed. This could result in blocking arbitrary IP addresses, such as legitimate/good search engine crawlers / bots. This could also be abused by competitors to cause damage related to visibility in search engines, can be used to bypass arbitrary blocks caused by this plugin, block any visitor or even the administrator and even more.

Affected products

Blackhole for Bad Bots: before 3.3.2 — fixed in 3.3.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Blackhole for Bad Bots 3.3.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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