VulnerabilityPublished 22 May 2026

CVE-2026-3481: WP Blockade – Visual Page Builder · Cross-site Scripting

Affects WP Blockade – Visual Page BuilderSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.1 Medium.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.1Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 16% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 22 May 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 30 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
burlingtonbytesWP Blockade – Visual Page Builder	Affected <=0.9.14	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Until an official fix is available, restrict Subscriber-level user capabilities if possible and monitor for plugin updates from the vendor. Since the vulnerability requires authenticated access, limiting user roles and educating users about phishing risks can reduce exploitation likelihood. Avoid clicking suspicious links that could trigger the reflected XSS. No nonce or capability checks are present, so additional hardening or custom code to validate inputs may be considered as a temporary mitigation.

Description

The WP Blockade plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via the 'shortcode' parameter in all versions up to and including 0.9.14. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping in the render_shortcode_preview() function. The function receives user input from $_GET['shortcode'], passes it through stripslashes() without any sanitization, and then outputs it directly via echo do_shortcode($shortcode) on line 393. When the input is not a valid WordPress shortcode (e.g., an HTML tag with JavaScript event handlers), do_shortcode() returns it unchanged, and it is reflected into the page without escaping. The endpoint is registered via admin_post_ (not admin_post_nopriv_), meaning it requires the user to be logged in with at minimum a Subscriber-level account. There is no nonce verification or additional capability check. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute if they can successfully trick a user into performing an action such as clicking a link.

Impact

An authenticated attacker with at least Subscriber-level access can inject arbitrary JavaScript code via the 'shortcode' parameter, which is reflected in the page output without proper escaping. This can lead to cross-site scripting attacks that may compromise user sessions or perform actions on behalf of users who click crafted links. The vulnerability does not allow unauthenticated exploitation and does not impact availability. The CVSS score of 6.1 reflects a medium severity impact with low confidentiality and integrity impact and no availability impact.

Summary

CVE-2026-3481 is a reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability in the WP Blockade – Visual Page Builder WordPress plugin affecting all versions up to 0.9.14. The vulnerability arises in the render_shortcode_preview() function, which takes user input from the 'shortcode' GET parameter, applies stripslashes() without sanitization, and outputs it via echo do_shortcode($shortcode). If the input is not a valid shortcode, it is returned unchanged and reflected without escaping, enabling script injection. The vulnerable endpoint is accessible only to authenticated users with Subscriber-level privileges or higher, and lacks nonce verification or capability checks, increasing the risk of abuse by authenticated attackers.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation (Cross-site Scripting) (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 22 May 2026, 05:15 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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