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W3 Total Cache <= 2.8.12 — Unauthenticated Command Injection

CVE-2025-9501Published · Updated

Action summary

Affected: ≤2.8.12Update to 2.8.13 or newer

All remediation steps
Watch plugin
Severity
High8.1
CVSS
8.1
CVSS 3.1 · CNA (Wordfence)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
What does this vector mean?
AV:N Attack vector
Network
AC:H Attack complexity
High
PR:N Privileges required
None
UI:N User interaction
None
S:U Scope
Unchanged
C:H Confidentiality
High
I:H Integrity
High
A:H Availability
High
Weakness
CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command
Required access
No account needed
Exploit prediction (EPSS)
No score
CISA KEV
Not listed
On this page8

Am I affected?

W3 Total Cache w3-total-cache

  1. Affected≤ 2.8.12
  2. Patched in2.8.13

Update to 2.8.13 or newer.

You are affected if you run ≤ 2.8.12. Version 2.8.13 and later are not affected by this issue.

  • Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under W3 Total Cache.
  • No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.
  • No account is needed to exploit this. Treat any exposed site on an affected version as at risk.

What to do

  1. Update to version 2.8.13, or a newer patched version
  2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
  3. Watch W3 Total Cache to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to wesley (wcraft).

The W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to, and including, 2.8.12 via _parse_dynamic_mfunc . This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute code on the server when comments are enabled and a post has been incorrectly injected with the mfunc tags. Please note we consider this to be a theoretical issue, and as such we rejected the original report from the researcher who then submitted this to WPScan. WPScan assigned a CVE ID, but we do not agree that this is a true security vulnerability. Exploitation of this issue is theoretical and requires gaining access to a secret value much like gaining access to a password.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.

Advisories & patches

More in W3 Total Cache

All 41
More vulnerabilities in W3 Total Cache
SeverityVulnerabilityCVEPublished
Medium5.4Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Comment Content via Predictable Minify Placeholder
≤2.10.7Update to 2.11.0
CVE-2026-120019
High7.2Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Comment Content Cached as HTML after License Expiry
≤2.10.7Update to 2.11.0
CVE-2026-111254
High7.2Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting
≤2.10.7Update to 2.11.0
CVE-2026-114178
Medium6.5Authenticated (Author+) Path Traversal
≤2.10.5Update to 2.10.6
CVE-2026-107321
High7.2Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Comment Content
≤2.10.6Update to 2.10.7
CVE-2026-87920

Timeline

  1. CVE published

    Severity high, CVSS 8.1

  2. Record last updated

Sources & licenses

Wordfence record
Vulnerability data
Wordfence Intelligence. [object Object] Licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0.
CVE® identifiers
[object Object]. Used under the CVE Program. CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.
CVSS / CWE
National Vulnerability Database (NVD), shown unmodified. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
VulnCrest content
Summary, remediation guidance and page layout © VulnCrest. Not sourced from NVD.

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