Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots: A security weakness
Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots is affected by a security weakness. The vulnerable path is reachable without authentication. The resulting impact depends on how the affected component exposes the vulnerable operation.
- Component
- Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots
- Plugin slug
banhammer- Affected
- See vendor advisory
- Safe version
- See mitigation notes
- Published
- Sep 26, 2025
This CVE was published Sep 26, 2025 and is one of 1 known issue for this plugin.
Update, patch or deactivate.
Update Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots to a release outside the affected range, or disable and remove it until a fixed version is available.
No confirmed safe version is listed. Consider a vendor-supported patch or temporarily restricting the affected functionality while you assess the risk.
Deactivate only when warranted by your risk profile, or when advised by your hosting provider in the limited circumstances where the vulnerability cannot otherwise be mitigated. If you’re unsure which action is appropriate, contact Fused or your hosting provider for guidance.
Technical description
The Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Blocking Bypass in all versions up to, and including, 3.4.8. This is due to a site-wide “secret key” being deterministically generated from a constant character set using md5() and base64_encode() and then stored in the `banhammer_secret_key` option. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to bypass the plugin’s logging and blocking by appending a GET parameter named `banhammer-process_{SECRET}` where `{SECRET}` is the predictable value, thereby causing Banhammer to abort its protections for that request.
CVE / CNA vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N