Vulnerability and threat management solutions provider, Digital Defense, has announced that its Vulnerability Research Team (VRT) uncovered a previously undisclosed vulnerability affecting the cPanel & WebHost Manager (WHM) web hosting platform.
cPanel &WHM version 11.90.0.5 (90.0 Build 5) exhibits a two-factor authentication bypass flaw, vulnerable to brute force attack, resulting in a scenario where an attacker with knowledge of or access to valid credentials could bypass two-factor authentication protections on an account. Digital Defense’s internal testing demonstrated that an attack can be accomplished in minutes.
“Our standard practice is to work in tandem with organizations on a coordinated disclosure effort to facilitate a prompt resolution to a vulnerability,” said Mike Cotton, senior vice president of engineering at Digital Defense. “The Digital Defense VRT reached out to cPanel who worked diligently on a patch. We will continue outreach to customers ensuring they are aware and able to take action to mitigate any potential risk introduced by the vulnerability.”
cPanel & WHM is a suite of tools built for Linux OS that allows hosting providers and users the ability to automate server management and web hosting tasks while simplifying the process of website hosting for the end user. Serving the global hosting community for over 20 years, cPanel touts having over 70 million domains launched on servers using cPanel & WHM to date.
What You Can Do
cPanel’s recent advisory provides more details about the updates that have been released, which should be applied here. For additional information, customers should contact cPanel directly.
The Digital Defense VRT regularly works with organizations promoting the responsible disclosure of zero-day vulnerabilities. The expertise of the VRT, when coupled with the company’s next generation hybrid cloud platform, Frontline Vulnerability Manager, enables early detection capabilities. When zero-days are discovered and internally validated, the VRT would immediately contact the affected vendor to notify the organization of the new finding(s) and assists, where possible, with the vendor’s remediation actions.
