CVE-2026-5032W3 Total Cache <= 2.9.3 - Unauthenticated Security Token Exposure via User-Agent Header
- 7.5HighCVSS base score
- 3.2%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 12% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
The W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to information exposure in all versions up to, and including, 2.9.3. This is due to the plugin bypassing its entire output buffering and processing pipeline when the request's User-Agent header contains "W3 Total Cache", which causes raw mfunc/mclude dynamic fragment HTML comments — including the W3TC_DYNAMIC_SECURITY security token — to be rendered in the page source. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to discover the value of the W3TC_DYNAMIC_SECURITY constant by sending a crafted User-Agent header to any page that contains developer-placed dynamic fragment tags, granted the site has the fragment caching feature enabled. With the leaked W3TC_DYNAMIC_SECURITY token, an attacker can craft valid mfunc tags to execute arbitrary PHP code on the server, achieving remote code execution.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list a Nuclei template for it.
Show the exploits1
Nuclei templates1 template
- W3 Total Cache <= 2.9.3 - Unauthenticated Dynamic Security Token Disclosure (Nuclei template) (opens in a new tab)
http/cves/2026/CVE-2026-5032.yamlSeverity high
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By Wordfence
- 6 days later
· 6 days later
Published
- 6 days later
· 6 days later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordfenceCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 3.2% · top 12% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.5.
Affected products
- affected ≤ 2.9.3
References
References3
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a65eb62d-847b-4f3a-848b-1290e3118c01?source=cve (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.9.3/Generic_Plugin.php#L1016 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3495959/w3-total-cache (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-18136 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-5032)Record last updated .