Findings

CVE-2026-48172

LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Published May 20, 2026 · updated Oct 7, 2026 · LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin

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.

Timeline

Detection, updates, and resolution for this record.

  1. May 20, 2026 · Catalog

    Detected

    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

  2. May 26, 2026 · CISA KEV

    Known exploited

    Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

  3. May 29, 2026 · CISA KEV

    Remediation due

    Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

  4. Oct 7, 2026 · Catalog

    Updated

    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

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.

CISA due date May 29, 2026

Affected

  • cpe litespeedtech/litespeed cpanel pluginversion unspecified
  • cpe litespeedtech/litespeed whm pluginversion unspecified
  • vendor LiteSpeed cPanel Pluginversion unspecified

Sources

  • CISA KEVCVE-2026-48172

    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.

    cisa.gov
  • CVE.orgCVE-2026-48172

    Official CVE identifier

    cve.org
  • FIRST EPSSCVE-2026-48172

    30-day exploitation probability 1.0%

    first.org
  • NIST NVDCVE-2026-48172

    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.

    nvd.nist.gov

References