Does this error message look familiar? If so, perhaps you’re locked out of your WordPress blog like I was this morning.

I could browse around just fine on my blog itself. However when I tried to do anything else I got this error message:

Error 403

We’re sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for /wp-admin/moderation.php (requested file changes based on task) on this server.

Your Internet Protocol address is listed on a blacklist of addresses involved in malicious or illegal activity. See the listing below for more details on specific blacklists and removal procedures.

Your technical support key is: 4428-b779-1366-73cd

You can use this key to fix this problem yourself.

If you are unable to fix the problem yourself, please contact dawudmiracle at gmail.com and be sure to provide the technical support key shown above.

Didn’t matter what I tried - comments, add post, delete spam, even update my profile - nothing worked. So I tried logging out and back in only to find out that I couldn’t log back in.

After a bit of frustration I found the error related to the Bad Behavior plugin. Here’s what Michael Hampton, BB’s developer said:

…Yesterday I moved all of my sites to a new dedicated server. In the process, I decommissioned an old blacklist I was running which I thought wasn’t being used, not realizing that Bad Behavior was still set to use it. Shortly afterward, I found myself locked out of my own blog, just as you all did. So therefore, this release.

So if you use Bad Behavior, you probably want to upgrade immediately (link begins download).

To upgrade the plugin simply do the following:

1. Download the latest version of Bad Behavior (2.0.11)
2. Unzip the download
3. Create an FTP connect to your WordPress plugins folder (wp-content/plugins/)
4. Upload the entire Bad Behavior folder into your plugins folder, overwriting the one that’s currenly there.
5. Try logging back into your WordPress admin

This should be fixed. It certainly worked for me. Just to be clear, I could browse my blog just fine. I just couldn’t do anything on it.

And…thanks to Joanna Young from BusinessBlogAngel for first bringing this error to my attention when she tried to leave a comment. Joanna, and everyone else, the issue is resolved so please join back in the conversation.