XSS in Paultgoodchild Shield: Blocks Bots, Protects Users, And Prevents Security Breaches

CVE-2026-0561

The Shield Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via the 'message' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 21.0.8 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user into performing an action such as clicking on a link.

Vulnerability class: XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.1 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (45.7th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 46th percentile — 45.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-0561: held from 0.003 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.006 · change: +0.003

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-0561?
CVE-2026-0561 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Paultgoodchild Shield: Blocks Bots, Protects Users, And Prevents Security Breaches, classified under Cross-site Scripting. CVSS score: 6.1/10. Published 2026-02-19.
How severe is CVE-2026-0561?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.1 out of 10.