Authenticated administrator takeover via broken role check
Published Jul 4, 2026 · Updated Jul 4, 2026
Improper authentication in Hestia Control Panel allows remote authenticated users to take over administrator accounts through panel cron jobs. The hestiaweb server-settings handler compares a low-privilege session against an undefined ROOT_USER value, so its redirect guard never runs. Any low-privilege panel account can save a privileged cron entry that invokes a passwordless-sudo management script to reset an administrator password and control the host.
Summary
What happened
Improper authentication in Hestia Control Panel allows remote authenticated users to take over administrator accounts through panel cron jobs. The hestiaweb server-settings handler compares a low-privilege session against an undefined ROOT_USER value, so its redirect guard never runs. Any low-privilege panel account can save a privileged cron entry that invokes a passwordless-sudo management script to reset an administrator password and control the host.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-12196
- Published
- Jul 4, 2026
- Updated
- Jul 4, 2026
- Vendor
- Hestia Control Panel
- Product
- Hestia Control Panel
- Classifications
- CWE-287, T1098, T1053.003
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jul 4, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jul 4, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=0 <8be23943c7e3231f66d226ca931c76f93be98412
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Panel cron-job administrator password-reset proof of conceptproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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