Critical CVSS 10
CVE-2026-18051
NVD analysis in progress
The W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin before 2.10.5 does not properly validate the request path it uses to build cache file names, allowing unauthenticated attackers to write a file into any existing directory on the server, inside or outside the web root, overwriting whatever occupies the target name. On Apache, the same flaw overwrites the site's .htaccess files, which breaks the site and can strip hardening rules that other security measures rely on.
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable remotely over the network, without authentication and with no action from the victim.
- Impact
- An attacker can modify or destroy data and take the service offline. The impact spreads beyond the vulnerable component into other parts of the system.
- Weakness
- An attacker-supplied file path is not confined, letting them read or write outside the intended folder.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doPatch without waiting for the next scheduled cycle. Start with the instances exposed to the internet.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.