CVE-2025-9376

Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection <= 11.58 - Insufficient Authorization to Unauthenticated Blocklist Bypass

2025-08-27 00:00
Jarno Vos (jarnovos)

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 11.59
Affected Plugin
Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection
Affected Version
<= 11.58
CVSS
6.5Medium
Weakness type
CWE-863 · Incorrect Authorization
CVE
CVE-2025-9376
View all Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2025-9376 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization vulnerability in the Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 11.58. It carries a CVSS score of 6.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 11.59; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2025, reported by Jarno Vos (jarnovos).

Vulnerability Overview

The Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized access of data due to an insufficient capability check on the 'stopbadbots_check_wordpress_logged_in_cookie' function in all versions up to, and including, 11.58. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to bypass blocklists, rate limits, and other plugin functionality.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user.

CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization

Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection <= 11.58 carries this weakness at stopbadbots_check_wordpress_logged_in_cookie, and reaching it takes no account at all. Incorrect authorization means a permission check exists but evaluates the wrong thing, so it passes for callers it was meant to stop.

The action runs for users the code intended to exclude, with the same effect as having no check at all. For Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection the fix is 11.59: builds <= 11.58 are affected, anything from 11.59 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 11.59, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. None of that substitutes for the fix: Block Bad Bots and Stop Bad Bots Crawlers and Spiders and Anti Spam Protection 11.59 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-9376https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/8d6b0d86-3cb4-4723-b677-141c604f00cchttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-9376

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C