What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-6989: Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking & Intrusion Prevention Security <= 18.5.9 - Unauthenticated Local File Inclusion

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 56.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2024-02-05 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-98

Description

The Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking & Intrusion Prevention Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 18.5.9 via the render_action_template parameter. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attacker to include and execute PHP files on the server, allowing the execution of any PHP code in those files.

Affected products

• paultgoodchild Shield: Blocks Bots, Protects Users, and Prevents Security Breaches: before 18.5.10 — fixed in 18.5.10

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: paultgoodchild Shield: Blocks Bots, Protects Users, and Prevents Security Breaches 18.5.10. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=3013699%40wp-simple-firewall&new=3013699%40wp-simple-firewall&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/063826cc-7ff3-4869-9831-f6a4a4bbe74c?source=cve
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=3013699%40wp-simple-firewall&new=3013699%40wp-simple-firewall&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/063826cc-7ff3-4869-9831-f6a4a4bbe74c?source=cve

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