Critical privilege escalation vulnerability in LiteSpeed cPanel/WHM plugins allowing attackers to potentially gain root access via network exploitation. This vulnerability is actively exploited in the wild and affects widely deployed web hosting control panel systems.
Data Source: CIRCL
Confidence: HIGH
Exploitation Method: DIRECT_NETWORK
CVE Published: 2026-05-21
Added to CISA KEV: 2026-05-26 5 DAYS BETWEEN CVE AND KEV
CVE-2026-48172 lets cPanel users run scripts as root, affecting LiteSpeed plugin 2.3–2.4.4 and exposing servers. ... A maximum-severity security vulnerability impacting LiteSpeed User-End cPanel Plugin has come under active exploitation in the wild. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-48172 (CVSS score: 10.0), relates to an instance of incorrect privilege assignment that an attacker could abuse to run arbitrary scripts with elevated permissions. ... The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-48172 (CVSS score: 10.0), relates to an instance of incorrect privilege assignment that an attacker could abuse ... LiteSpeed noted that the "vulnerability is being actively exploited," but refrained from sharing additional details. ... The development comes weeks after a critical cPanel vulnerability ( CVE-2026-41940 , CVSS score: 9.8) was identified as actively exploited by unknown threat actors to deploy Mirai botnet variants and a ransomware strain called Sorry. ... The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-48172 (CVSS score: 10.0), relates to an instance of incorrect privilege assignment that an attacker could abuse to run arbitrary scripts with elevated permissions. "Any cPanel user (including an attacker or a compromised account) may exploit the lsws.redisAble function to execute arbitrary scripts as root," LiteSpeed said.
LiteSpeed User-End cPanel Plugin before 2.4.5 allows privilege escalation (possibly to root), as exploited in the wild in May 2026. ... 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.
CVE-2026-48172 Detail. Description. LiteSpeed User-End cPanel Plugin before 2.4.5 allows privilege escalation (possibly to root), as exploited in the wild in May 2026.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.