What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-12365: W3 Total Cache <= 2.8.1 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Missing Authorization to Server-Side Request Forgery

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2025-01-14 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-862

Description

The W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized access of data due to a missing capability check on the is_w3tc_admin_page function in all versions up to, and including, 2.8.1. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to obtain the plugin's nonce value and perform unauthorized actions, resulting in information disclosure, service plan limits consumption as well as making web requests to arbitrary locations originating from the web application that can be used to query information from internal services, including instance metadata on cloud-based applications.

Affected products

• boldgrid W3 Total Cache: before 2.8.2 — fixed in 2.8.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: boldgrid W3 Total Cache 2.8.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Extension_ImageService_Plugin_Admin.php#L200
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Extensions_Plugin_Admin.php#L246
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Extensions_Plugin_Admin.php#L55
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Generic_Plugin_Admin.php#L385
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Generic_Plugin_Admin.php#L516
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Generic_Plugin_Admin.php#L55
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Root_Loader.php#L269
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/UsageStatistics_Plugin_Admin.php#L10
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/UsageStatistics_Plugin_Admin.php#L94
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/Util_Admin.php#L822
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/inc/options/common/footer.php#L49
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.8.0/inc/options/common/top_nav_bar.php#L217

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