What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-78438: W3 Total Cache <= 2.10.5 - Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via LazyLoad Background Mutator

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.2 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-09-05 · updated 2026-09-08
• Weakness: CWE-79

Description

The W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Comment Content via LazyLoad Background Mutator in all versions up to, and including, 2.10.5 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. This requires the "Lazy Load Images" feature with "Process background images" to be enabled, and the malicious comment to be approved by a moderator before execution is triggered.

Affected products

• boldgrid W3 Total Cache: through 2.10.5

References

• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.10.5/UserExperience_LazyLoad_Mutator.php#L255
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.10.5/UserExperience_LazyLoad_Mutator.php#L293
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.10.5/UserExperience_LazyLoad_Mutator.php#L91
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/w3-total-cache/tags/2.10.5/UserExperience_LazyLoad_Plugin.php#L87
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3680101/w3-total-cache/tags/2.10.6/UserExperience_LazyLoad_Mutator.php
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?old_path=%2Fw3-total-cache/tags/2.10.5&new_path=%2Fw3-total-cache/tags/2.10.6
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&new=3680101%40w3-total-cache%2Ftags%2F2.10.6&old=3653442%40w3-total-cache%2Ftags%2F2.10.5
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/5580ad05-af50-4899-9cbf-39ad8000eb6a?source=cve

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