CVE-2024-51378: n/a auth bypass enables

CISO Take

CyberPanel, a widely deployed open-source web hosting control panel, contains an authentication bypass in its DNS and FTP reset-status endpoints that lets an unauthenticated remote attacker inject OS commands via shell metacharacters in the statusfile parameter, achieving full root-level command execution. This is not an AI/ML-specific product despite its ml_ui category tag in our pipeline — treat the AI relevance as indirect: any organization using CyberPanel to manage servers that also host AI workloads (model-serving APIs, Jupyter/Gradio/Streamlit UIs, RAG backends) inherits the same blast radius as any other hosted asset on that box. The urgency is not theoretical: this sits in CISA KEV with an ACT SSVC decision, EPSS places it in the top 0% most-likely-to-be-exploited, a public PoC and a Nuclei scanning template exist, and it was mass-exploited in the wild in October 2024 by the PSAUX ransomware campaign against roughly 22,000 CyberPanel instances. If you run CyberPanel anywhere in your estate — including as the management layer in front of self-hosted AI/ML tooling — patch immediately to a version built from or after commit 1c0c6cb (versions through 2.3.6 and unpatched 2.3.7 are vulnerable), verify secMiddleware actually enforces POST-only access on /dns/getresetstatus and /ftp/getresetstatus, and hunt for indicators of PSAUX (unexpected cron entries, encrypted files, unfamiliar processes spawned by the litespeed/cyberpanel user).

Sources: NVD CISA KEV EPSS ATLAS

What is the risk?

Critical (CVSS 10, AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/C:H/I:H/A:H). Every exploitability factor is maximized: no authentication, no user interaction, network-reachable, low complexity, and full compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Real-world exploitation is confirmed and automated (Nuclei template, public PoC, ransomware campaign at scale), and EPSS/KEV/SSVC all agree this is being actively weaponized rather than theoretical. There is no meaningful mitigating factor short of patching or taking the affected endpoints offline.

How does the attack unfold?

Initial Access

Attacker sends an unauthenticated GET request to /dns/getresetstatus or /ftp/getresetstatus, bypassing secMiddleware which only enforces checks on POST requests.

AML.T0049

Command Injection

Shell metacharacters embedded in the statusfile parameter are executed by the underlying OS, achieving arbitrary command execution (CWE-78) without any credentials.

Impact

Attacker deploys ransomware (e.g., PSAUX) or establishes persistence, encrypting or exfiltrating server data and any co-located workloads, as observed at scale against ~22,000 instances in October 2024.

Initial Access

Attacker sends an unauthenticated GET request to /dns/getresetstatus or /ftp/getresetstatus, bypassing secMiddleware which only enforces checks on POST requests.

AML.T0049

Command Injection

Shell metacharacters embedded in the statusfile parameter are executed by the underlying OS, achieving arbitrary command execution (CWE-78) without any credentials.

Impact

Attacker deploys ransomware (e.g., PSAUX) or establishes persistence, encrypting or exfiltrating server data and any co-located workloads, as observed at scale against ~22,000 instances in October 2024.

What systems are affected?

Package	Ecosystem	Vulnerable Range	Patched
n/a	—	—	No patch

Do you use n/a? You're affected.

How severe is it?

CVSS 3.1

10.0 / 10

EPSS

94.7%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Higher than 100% of all CVEs

Source: EPSS v3 — FIRST.org

Exploitation Status

Actively Exploited

CISA KEV

Sophistication

Trivial

Exploitation Confidence

high

✓ CISA KEV (active exploitation confirmed) — Dec 2024

✓ Exploitation reported in the wild — CISA — Dec 2024

✓ Exploitation reported in the wild — NVD — Oct 2024

✓ CISA SSVC: Active exploitation

✓ Weaponized Metasploit module (exploit/unix/webapp/cyberpanel_preauth_rce_multi_cve)

○ Exploit published in Exploit-DB

○ Nuclei detection template available

○ EPSS exploit prediction: 95%

Composite signal derived from CISA KEV, VulnCheck KEV, CISA SSVC, EPSS, Metasploit, Exploit-DB, trickest/cve, Nuclei templates, and inthewild.io exploitation reports.

What is the attack surface?

AV Network

AC Low

PR None

UI None

S Changed

C High

I High

A High

What should I do?

1 step

1) Patch/upgrade to the fixed CyberPanel build (post commit 1c0c6cbcf71abe573da0b5fddfb9603e7477f683) immediately — versions through 2.3.6 and the unpatched 2.3.7 are vulnerable; track cyberpanel.net's changelog for the official patched release number. 2) If patching cannot happen immediately, block or restrict network access to /dns/getresetstatus and /ftp/getresetstatus at the reverse proxy/firewall layer, or take CyberPanel's admin interface off the public internet entirely (VPN/allowlist only). 3) Verify secMiddleware enforces method restrictions correctly post-patch — the root cause was that the middleware only validated POST requests, letting attackers route the exploit through GET. 4) Hunt for compromise indicators: unexpected cron jobs, encrypted files (ransomware note patterns from PSAUX), unfamiliar outbound connections, or new admin/FTP accounts. 5) Run the public Nuclei template defensively against your own CyberPanel fleet to confirm patch status. 6) If CyberPanel manages a host that also runs AI/ML services, treat any suspected compromise as a full-host breach — rotate all credentials and API keys accessible from that server (LLM API keys, database creds, cloud IAM tokens), not just CyberPanel's own accounts.

What does CISA's SSVC say?

Decision Act

Exploitation active

Automatable Yes

Technical Impact total

Source: CISA Vulnrichment (SSVC v2.0). Decision based on the CISA Coordinator decision tree.

How is it classified?

Auth Bypass Code Execution Plugin AML.T0049 - Exploit Public-Facing Application

Which compliance frameworks are affected?

This CVE is relevant to:

ISO 42001

A.6.2.6 - Third-party and infrastructure resource management

NIST AI RMF

MAP 1.1 - Context and infrastructure risks affecting AI systems

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-51378?

CyberPanel, a widely deployed open-source web hosting control panel, contains an authentication bypass in its DNS and FTP reset-status endpoints that lets an unauthenticated remote attacker inject OS commands via shell metacharacters in the statusfile parameter, achieving full root-level command execution. This is not an AI/ML-specific product despite its ml_ui category tag in our pipeline — treat the AI relevance as indirect: any organization using CyberPanel to manage servers that also host AI workloads (model-serving APIs, Jupyter/Gradio/Streamlit UIs, RAG backends) inherits the same blast radius as any other hosted asset on that box. The urgency is not theoretical: this sits in CISA KEV with an ACT SSVC decision, EPSS places it in the top 0% most-likely-to-be-exploited, a public PoC and a Nuclei scanning template exist, and it was mass-exploited in the wild in October 2024 by the PSAUX ransomware campaign against roughly 22,000 CyberPanel instances. If you run CyberPanel anywhere in your estate — including as the management layer in front of self-hosted AI/ML tooling — patch immediately to a version built from or after commit 1c0c6cb (versions through 2.3.6 and unpatched 2.3.7 are vulnerable), verify secMiddleware actually enforces POST-only access on /dns/getresetstatus and /ftp/getresetstatus, and hunt for indicators of PSAUX (unexpected cron entries, encrypted files, unfamiliar processes spawned by the litespeed/cyberpanel user).

Is CVE-2024-51378 actively exploited?

Yes, CVE-2024-51378 is confirmed actively exploited and listed in CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog since Wed Dec 04 2024 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time).

How to fix CVE-2024-51378?

1) Patch/upgrade to the fixed CyberPanel build (post commit 1c0c6cbcf71abe573da0b5fddfb9603e7477f683) immediately — versions through 2.3.6 and the unpatched 2.3.7 are vulnerable; track cyberpanel.net's changelog for the official patched release number. 2) If patching cannot happen immediately, block or restrict network access to /dns/getresetstatus and /ftp/getresetstatus at the reverse proxy/firewall layer, or take CyberPanel's admin interface off the public internet entirely (VPN/allowlist only). 3) Verify secMiddleware enforces method restrictions correctly post-patch — the root cause was that the middleware only validated POST requests, letting attackers route the exploit through GET. 4) Hunt for compromise indicators: unexpected cron jobs, encrypted files (ransomware note patterns from PSAUX), unfamiliar outbound connections, or new admin/FTP accounts. 5) Run the public Nuclei template defensively against your own CyberPanel fleet to confirm patch status. 6) If CyberPanel manages a host that also runs AI/ML services, treat any suspected compromise as a full-host breach — rotate all credentials and API keys accessible from that server (LLM API keys, database creds, cloud IAM tokens), not just CyberPanel's own accounts.

What systems are affected by CVE-2024-51378?

This vulnerability affects the following AI/ML architecture patterns: self-hosted infrastructure hosting AI/ML services (indirect blast radius), model serving, vector databases.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2024-51378?

CVE-2024-51378 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 10.0 (CRITICAL). The EPSS exploitation probability is 94.67%.

What is the AI security impact?

Affected AI Architectures

self-hosted infrastructure hosting AI/ML services (indirect blast radius)model servingvector databases

MITRE ATLAS Techniques

AML.T0049 Exploit Public-Facing Application

Compliance Controls Affected

ISO 42001: A.6.2.6

NIST AI RMF: MAP 1.1

What are the technical details?

Original Advisory

getresetstatus in dns/views.py and ftp/views.py in CyberPanel (aka Cyber Panel) before 1c0c6cb allows remote attackers to bypass authentication and execute arbitrary commands via /dns/getresetstatus or /ftp/getresetstatus by bypassing secMiddleware (which is only for a POST request) and using shell metacharacters in the statusfile property, as exploited in the wild in October 2024 by PSAUX. Versions through 2.3.6 and (unpatched) 2.3.7 are affected.

Exploitation Scenario

An attacker scans the internet (or uses Shodan/Censys) for exposed CyberPanel instances, then sends a crafted GET request to /dns/getresetstatus or /ftp/getresetstatus with shell metacharacters embedded in the statusfile parameter — bypassing secMiddleware because it only validates POST requests, not GET. The payload executes as an OS command with the privileges of the CyberPanel process (typically root or a highly privileged service account), giving the attacker an initial foothold with no credentials required. From there, as demonstrated by the real PSAUX campaign, the attacker deploys ransomware across the host, encrypting web content, databases, and any co-located application data — including, where relevant, self-hosted AI/ML artifacts (model files, embeddings stores, notebook data) that happened to live on the same server managed by the compromised panel.