Critical severity · published May 21, 2026
CVE-2026-48172
LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
In wildKEV
9.8
CVSS
17.9%
EPSS
Yes
On KEV
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)17.9% · higher than 97% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildYes
CISA KEVListed May 26, 2026
Federal remediation dueMay 29, 2026
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
WP
WHM Plugin · LiteSpeed Technologies
before 5.3.1.0 · source: vendor
CP
cPanel Plugin · LiteSpeed Technologies
2.3 before 2.4.7 · source: vendor, KEV
LC
Litespeed Cpanel Plugin · Litespeedtech
before 2.4.7 · source: NVD
LW
Litespeed Whm Plugin · Litespeedtech
before 5.3.1.0 · source: NVD
In the news
VulnerabilityCritical
U.S. CISA adds LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin flaw CVE-2026-48172 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. CVE-2026-48172 (CVSS score of 10.0) affects the LiteSpeed User-End cPanel plugin before version 2.4.5 and allows […]
May 28, 2026·Security Affairs
VulnerabilityHigh
[CISA KEV] CVE-2026-48172: LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin - LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin Privilege Escalation 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.
CPcPanel PluginCVE-2026-48172
May 26, 2026·CISA KEV
VulnerabilityCritical
LiteSpeed cPanel Plugin CVE-2026-48172 Exploited to Run Scripts as Root
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.
"Any cPanel user (including an attacker or a compromised account) may
May 23, 2026·The Hacker News
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-48172
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-48172
CISA KEV catalogue
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog
www.litespeedtech.com
https://www.litespeedtech.com/products/litespeed-web-server/control-panel-support/cpanel
www.litespeedtech.com
https://www.litespeedtech.com/products/litespeed-web-server/control-panel-support/release-log
blog.litespeedtech.com
https://blog.litespeedtech.com/2026/05/21/security-update-for-litespeed-cpanel-plugin/
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