Rapid7

module

Control Web Panel /admin/index.php Unauthenticated RCE

Disclosed
Dec 16, 2025
Created
Jan 14, 2026

Description

Control Web Panel (CWP) versions unauthenticated OS command injection. User input passed via the
"key" GET parameter to /admin/index.php (when the "api" parameter is set)
is not properly sanitized before being used to execute OS commands.
This can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers to inject and execute
arbitrary OS commands with the privileges of the root user on the web server.

Successful exploitation usually requires "Softaculous" and/or "SitePad"
to be installed through the Scripts Manager.

Authors

Lukas Johannes Möller
Egidio Romano

Platform

Linux,Unix

Architectures

x86, x86_64, x64, mips, mipsle, mipsbe, mips64, mips64le, ppc, ppce500v2, ppc64, ppc64le, cbea, cbea64, sparc, sparc64, armle, armbe, aarch64, cmd, php, tty, java, ruby, dalvik, python, nodejs, firefox, zarch, r, riscv32be, riscv32le, riscv64be, riscv64le, loongarch64

Module Options

To display the available options, load the module within the Metasploit console and run the commands 'show options' or 'show advanced':


msf > use exploit/linux/http/control_web_panel_api_cmd_exec
msf exploit(control_web_panel_api_cmd_exec) > show targets
...targets...
msf exploit(control_web_panel_api_cmd_exec) > set TARGET < target-id >
msf exploit(control_web_panel_api_cmd_exec) > show options
...show and set options...
msf exploit(control_web_panel_api_cmd_exec) > exploit

Title
Rapid7 Labs

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