CVE-2026-9282 — WordPress
HIGHCVE-2026-9282 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Path Traversal vulnerability. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
The W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Directory Traversal in all versions up to, and including, 2.9.4 via the setupSources function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated…
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-9282.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-9282 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 384,993 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
The W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Directory Traversal in all versions up to, and including, 2.9.4 via the setupSources function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to read the contents of arbitrary files on the server, which can contain sensitive information. Exploitation requires enabling manual minify mode and supplying a manual-format minify filename so that the hash is empty and the f_array[] entries are not overwritten before reaching setupSources().
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2026-9282 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
How to detect CVE-2026-9282
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2026-9282 -u https://target- Template
- W3 Total Cache <= 2.9.4 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Read
- Severity
- high
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (0x_Akoko), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-9282 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.