XSS in Paultgoodchild Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking, Brute-Force Login Protection & File Scanning

CVE-2026-118057

The Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking, Brute-Force Login Protection & File Scanning plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'REQUEST_URI' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 22.3.2 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. The hidden 'path' column in ForTraffic.php lacks a client-side render function, so DataTables builds its cell via innerHTML, causing stored HTML in the path value to be parsed into live DOM nodes; a prior partial fix in version 18.5.8 added esc_html() only to the visible 'page' column, leaving the hidden 'path' field unescaped and exploitable through version 22.2.6.

Vulnerability class: XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)

Published .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.2 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (15.3th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 15th percentile — 15.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

The 30-day trend appears once there are two daily scores.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-118057?
CVE-2026-118057 is a high-severity vulnerability in Paultgoodchild Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking, Brute-Force Login Protection & File Scanning, classified under Cross-site Scripting. CVSS score: 7.2/10. Published 2026-10-31.
How severe is CVE-2026-118057?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.2 out of 10.