SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityModified

CVE-2019-9859

Vesta Control Panel (VestaCP) 0.9.7 through 0.9.8-23 is vulnerable to an authenticated command execution that can result in remote root access on the server.

HIGH 8.8EPSS 3.00%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (3.00%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

Vesta Control Panel (VestaCP) 0.9.7 through 0.9.8-23 is vulnerable to an authenticated command execution that can result in remote root access on the server. The platform works with PHP as the frontend language and uses shell scripts to execute system actions. PHP executes shell script through the dangerous command exec. This function can be dangerous if arguments passed to it are not filtered. Every user input in VestaCP that is used as an argument is filtered with the escapeshellarg function. This function comes from the PHP library directly and its description is as follows: "escapeshellarg() adds single quotes around a string and quotes/escapes any existing single quotes allowing you to pass a string directly to a shell function and having it be treated as a single safe argument." It means that if you give Username, it will have 'Username' as a replacement. This works well and protects users from exploiting this potentially dangerous exec function. Unfortunately, VestaCP uses this escapeshellarg function incorrectly in several places.

CVSS 3.1
8.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
3.00% probability · 87th percentile
Public exploits
None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-78
Affected
vestacp/vesta control panel
Source
cve@mitre.org
EPSS trend
0%3%5%26 October 2026: 3.00%26 October 202626 October 2026

EPSS 3.0% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.