CVE-2026-48172: LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
- Is it exploited?
Yes. CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 26 May 2026, 5 days after the CVE record was published.
- How likely is exploitation in the next 30 days?
- 17.9%
EPSS score, percentile 97.2 of all scored records
- How severe?
- 10.0 Critical
CVSS v4.0 base score, given by the CNA
- What should I do?
CISA deadline 29 May 2026. Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
The CVE record links no vendor advisory, patch or mitigation.
- Which versions are affected?
Affected
- from 2.3 to before 2.4.7
- before 5.3.1.0
Source: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, 2026.10.28, as of 28 Oct 2026; FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), v2026.06.15, as of 28 Oct 2026; CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.
What to do
Required action, set by CISA
Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
CISA due date for this action: 29 May 2026.
Solution (from the CVE record)
Installation of LiteSpeed WHM PlugIn 5.3.1.0 and cPanel 2.4.7. Though installation of WHM 5.2.10 and cPanel 2.4.5 and above mitigate most of the issues.
Advisories and patches
The CVE record links no vendor advisory, patch or mitigation.
Linked from CISA's catalog entry
- https://blog.litespeedtech.com/2026/05/21/security-update-for-litespeed-cpanel-plugin/
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-48172
Affected products and versions
As listed in the CVE record.
| Status | Versions |
|---|---|
| Affected | from 2.3 to before 2.4.7 |
Versions not listed are: unaffected.
| Status | Versions |
|---|---|
| Affected | before 5.3.1.0 |
Versions not listed are: unaffected.
Source: CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.
About this vulnerability
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.
Summary: CISA's KEV catalog, as of 28 Oct 2026.
- CISA added CVE-2026-48172 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on 26 May 2026.
- CISA's ransomware flag for this entry is "Unknown": no evidence of ransomware use in the catalog, which is not proof of none.
- The due date CISA sets for the required action is 29 May 2026.
- The CVE record was published on 21 May 2026, 5 days before it was added to KEV.
- The CVE record carries a CVSS v4.0 base score of 10.0 (Critical), given by its CNA.
- FIRST's EPSS model puts the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days at 17.9% (percentile 97.2), as of 28 Oct 2026.
- CISA's SSVC assessment in the CVE record: exploitation active, automatable yes, technical impact total.
Source: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, 2026.10.28, as of 28 Oct 2026; CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026; FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), v2026.06.15, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.
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.
Source: CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.
Weakness
- CWE-266: Incorrect Privilege Assignment
CWE and CAPEC are maintained by MITRE; the entries are those named in the CVE record and the KEV entry.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 21 May 2026 | CVE record published |
| 26 May 2026 | Added to CISA KEV |
| 29 May 2026 | CISA due date for the required action |
| 7 Oct 2026 | CVE record last updated |
References
More exploited LiteSpeed vulnerabilities
- CVE-2026-54420: LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following Vulnerability