WordPress Core Update RCE Vulnerability CVE-2026-119977 Actively Exploited, CISA Adds to KEV Catalog
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a remote code execution vulnerability affecting the WordPress core update function to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog following confirmed active exploitation.
Tracked as CVE-2026-119977, the flaw allows attackers to predict the temporary file storage location created during package updates and access it from outside to execute arbitrary code. The vulnerability affects the content management system’s core program and has already been observed in real-world attacks.
According to Wordfence, which assigned the issue a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.1 (High), more than 13,000 exploitation attempts were blocked by its products in the past 24 hours alone. The flaw was fixed in the WordPress 7.1.4 release issued on October 28, 2026, with backports now being deployed across all supported branches starting from version 4.7.
CISA set a strict remediation deadline of November 6, 2026 — just three days after adding the vulnerability to the KEV list — for all U.S. federal agencies. The agency also directed organizations to investigate whether any systems have already been compromised.
Security researchers emphasize that the attack vector relies on the predictable naming and location of temporary files during the update process, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to inject and execute malicious code before the update completes.
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