[ CVE-2026-100159 · Published 16 Oct 2026 ]
Vulnerability in ays-pro Popup Box – Create Countdown, Coupon, Video, Contact Form Popups
[ Description ]Official description
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.
[ Fixes ]Fixes and patches
No fix or interim patch is linked from our sources yet. Check the vendor references below and limit exposure of affected systems until a fix is available.
[ References ]References
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/ays-popup-box/tags/6.4.2/includes/class-ays-pb-data.php
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/ays-popup-box/tags/6.4.2/public/class-ays-pb-public.php
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/ays-popup-box/tags/6.4.2/public/partials/ays-pb-publ…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/ays-popup-box/tags/6.4.2/public/partials/ays-pb-publ…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/ays-popup-box/tags/6.4.2/public/partials/ays-pb-publ…
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/ays-popup-box/tags/6.4.3/public/class-ays-pb-public.php
- www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/535c4796-d1aa-4cd1-922e-f9dcf216f76d