Is Shield Security safe? Known vulnerabilities and latest version

The Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking, Brute-Force Login Protection & File Scanning plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'REQUEST_URI' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 22.3.2 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. The hidden 'path' column in ForTraffic.php lacks a client-side render function, so DataTables builds its cell via innerHTML, causing stored HTML in the path value to be parsed into live DOM nodes; a prior partial fix in version 18.5.8 added esc_html() only to the visible 'page' column, leaving the hidden 'path' field unescaped and exploitable through version 22.2.6.

The Shield Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via the 'message' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 21.0.8 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user into performing an action such as clicking on a link.

The Shield Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 21.0.8. This is due to the plugin allowing nonce verification to be bypassed via user-supplied parameter in the 'isNonceVerifyRequired' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute SQL injection attacks, extracting sensitive information from the database, via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.

The Shield Security: Blocks Bots, Protects Users, and Prevents Security Breaches plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data due to a missing capability check on the `MfaEmailDisable` action in all versions up to, and including, 21.0.9. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to disable the global Email 2FA setting for the entire site.

The Shield: Blocks Bots, Protects Users, and Prevents Security Breaches plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference in all versions up to, and including, 21.0.9 via the MfaGoogleAuthToggle class due to missing validation on a user controlled key. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to disable Google Authenticator for any user.

The Shield Security WordPress plugin before 20.0.6 does not sanitise and escape a parameter before outputting it back in the page, leading to a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting which could be used against high privilege users such as admin.

The Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking & Intrusion Prevention Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 19.1.13. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the exec function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to disable pin protection for the admin interface of the plugin via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.

The Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking & Intrusion Prevention Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 18.5.9 via the render_action_template parameter. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attacker to include and execute PHP files on the server, allowing the execution of any PHP code in those files.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in Shield Security Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking & Intrusion Prevention Security allows Stored XSS.This issue affects Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking & Intrusion Prevention Security: from n/a through 18.5.7.

The Shield Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Missing Authorization on the 'theme-plugin-file' AJAX action in versions up to, and including, 17.0.17. This allows authenticated attackers to add arbitrary audit log entries indicating that a theme or plugin has been edited, and is also a vector for Cross-Site Scripting via CVE-2023-0992.

The Shield Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 17.0.17 via the 'User-Agent' header. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.

The Shield Security WordPress plugin before 13.0.6 does not sanitise and escape admin notes, which could allow high privilege users to perform Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html is disallowed.