CVEs / CVE-2026-48172
CVE-2026-48172: LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
- Known exploited in the CISA KEV catalog since 26 May 2026
- critical 9.8 CVSS 3.1 (NVD)
- EPSS 17.9% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 97% of CVEs (30 Oct 2026)
- Last changed at its sources
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Summary
LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin contains privilege escalation vulnerability that is exposed via the user-end cPanel plugin, which can be abused by any cPanel user account to execute arbitrary scripts with root privileges.
Description
LiteSpeed User-End cPanel Plugin before 2.4.5 allows privilege escalation (possibly to root), as exploited in the wild in May 2026. Detection is best done via a command line of grep -rE "cpanel_jsonapi_func=redisAble" /var/cpanel/logs /usr/local/cpanel/logs/ 2>/dev/null in Bash. If you get no output, you have not been hit with exploitation of the vulnerability. If there is output, we recommend you examine the IP addresses in the list, determine if they are valid IP addresses, and if not, block them. To determine damage done, examine the system logs for use by the detected IP addresses. The issue is related to mishandling of Redis enable/disable features. The recommended minimum version is 2.4.7.
Affected and fixed versions
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| LiteSpeed Technologies cPanel Plugin | from 2.3, before 2.4.7 | 2.4.7 |
| LiteSpeed Technologies WHM Plugin | before 5.3.1.0 | 5.3.1.0 |
Exploitation
| In CISA KEV since | 26 May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Due date for US federal agencies | 29 May 2026 |
| Used in ransomware campaigns | Unknown |
| Required action | Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. |
Severity
| CVSS 3.1 | 9.8 criticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HScored by NVD |
|---|---|
| Weakness | CWE-266 |
References
- CVE-2026-48172 on NVD
- CVE-2026-48172 in the CISA KEV catalog
- https://blog.litespeedtech.com/2026/05/21/security-update-for-litespeed-cpanel-plugin/ (cited by CISA)
- https://blog.litespeedtech.com/2026/05/21/security-update-for-litespeed-cpanel-plugin/ Vendor Advisory
- https://www.litespeedtech.com/products/litespeed-web-server/control-panel-support/cpanel Product
- https://www.litespeedtech.com/products/litespeed-web-server/control-panel-support/release-log Release Notes
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-48172 US Government Resource
Sources
Exploitation status from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. EPSS scores from FIRST. Descriptions, severity and references from the National Vulnerability Database. Open-source package versions from OSV (CC-BY 4.0). Text is shown as each source states it; Stackurity does not edit it. Check the vendor's advisory before acting.
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.