CVE-2026-100159 PUBLISHED

Popup Box 6.4.1 - 6.4.2 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary Shortcode Execution via Client-IP / X-Forwarded-For HTTP Headers

Assigner: Wordfence
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 16.10.2026 Updated: 16.10.2026

The Popup Box plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Arbitrary Shortcode Execution in versions 6.4.1 to 6.4.2. This is due to the ays_popup_get_user_ip() function reading the client-controlled Client-IP / X-Forwarded-For / Forwarded / X-Forwarded / Forwarded-For request headers, sanitizing them only with sanitize_text_field() (which does not strip the bracket, quote, space, or '=' characters used by shortcode syntax), substituting the value into a popup body wherever the %%user_ip_address%% token appears (a raw str_replace with no escaping in Ays_Pb_Data::replace_message_variables()), and then passing the resulting body to do_shortcode() in Ays_Pb_Public::ays_autoembed() at output on the wp_footer hook. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary registered shortcodes with attacker-supplied attributes on the server whenever an administrator has added the %%user_ip_address%% token to a popup's Custom Content body, which can be leveraged to read arbitrary data or perform other actions exposed by shortcodes installed on the site.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
CVSS Score: 4.8

Product Status

Vendor ays-pro
Product Popup Box – Create Countdown, Coupon, Video, Contact Form Popups
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 6.4.1 to 6.4.2 (incl.)

Credits

  • YC_Infosec finder

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') CWE