The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued an urgent alert about a critical command-injection vulnerability in Control Web Panel that is currently being actively exploited in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2025-48703, this flaw poses a significant threat to organizations running the popular server management platform and demands immediate attention from system administrators worldwide.
Control Web Panel, formerly known as CentOS Web Panel, is a widely deployed open-source server management solution used by thousands of organisations to administrate Linux-based web servers and hosting environments.
The vulnerability discovered in this platform allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary operating system commands remotely, potentially leading to complete server compromise and unauthorized access to sensitive data.
Vulnerability Details and Technical Impact
The vulnerability exists in the file manager module of Control Web Panel and affects explicitly how the application handles the t_total parameter in changePerm requests.
Attackers can inject shell metacharacters into this parameter to bypass input validation and execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the web panel process.
What makes this vulnerability particularly dangerous is that it requires no authentication to exploit, meaning any attacker with network access to the vulnerable system can potentially compromise it.
The flaw is classified as CWE-78, which covers the improper neutralization of special elements in an operating system command, commonly known as OS command injection.
This type of vulnerability has historically been one of the most critical security issues affecting web applications and server management tools because successful exploitation typically results in complete system compromise.
According to CISA’s advisory, attackers need a valid non-root username to exploit this vulnerability, which is often readily obtainable through reconnaissance or information disclosure.
This additional requirement, while providing minimal protection, should not be relied upon as a security measure, given the ease of username enumeration in most Linux environments.
CISA has classified this vulnerability with a mandatory response deadline of November 25, 2025, giving organizations just three weeks to implement protections.
The agency recommends that all organizations running Control Web Panel immediately apply vendor-provided security patches and mitigations.
For organizations unable to patch systems immediately, CISA advises implementing network-level controls to restrict access to the vulnerable application.
Additionally, organizations utilizing Control Web Panel in cloud environments should follow the requirements outlined in BOD 22-01, which mandates specific security practices for federal information systems and contractors.
Those unable to implement mitigations or deploy patches should consider discontinuing use of the product entirely until patches become available.
System administrators should prioritize patching all Control Web Panel installations as part of their incident response procedures.
Organizations should conduct vulnerability scans to identify all systems running the affected software and establish an inventory for tracking remediation efforts.
Security teams should monitor network traffic and server logs for suspicious activity that may indicate exploitation attempts targeting the t_total parameter in filemanager requests.
Given that this vulnerability is actively being exploited, organizations should treat this alert as a top priority and allocate the necessary resources to ensure the rapid deployment of security patches across their infrastructure.
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