Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-43633 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-43633 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-43633?
- Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 10, published 19 May 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- HestiaCP Hestia Control Panel 1.9.0 through 1.9.4.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-43633?
- A patch was published on 2026-03-08: Fix merged into main branch via pull request #5244 Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-43633 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a network appliance.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-43633?
- Check whether you run HestiaCP Hestia Control Panel at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A deserialization vulnerability (CWE-502) exists in HestiaCP due to a session format mismatch between the PHP-based backend and the Node.js-based web terminal component. Attackers can inject crafted data into HTTP headers that are initially processed by the PHP session handler. When the Node.js web terminal component subsequently attempts to deserialize these values, it incorrectly treats the attacker-controlled data as trusted session objects. This allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to achieve arbitrary command execution with root privileges on systems where the web terminal feature is enabled. The issue was addressed by moving session authentication lookups to a PHP helper to ensure consistent data handling.
Affected products
- HestiaCP Hestia Control Panel (HestiaCP) 1.9.0 through 1.9.4
Timeline
- 2026-01-16: other: Initial notification sent to vendor
- 2026-02-20: disclosed: Public issue opened on GitHub after lack of vendor response
- 2026-03-08: patched: Fix merged into main branch via pull request #5244
- 2026-05-19: advisory: CVE published to NVD
References
- https://github.com/hestiacp/hestiacp/commit/854d71b3c1737b0a0d0cc55c926008ffe1f6719b
- https://github.com/hestiacp/hestiacp/issues/5229
- https://github.com/hestiacp/hestiacp/pull/5244
- https://mercuryiss.com.au/hestiacp-unauthenticated-rce-ip-spoofing-cve-2026-43633-cve-2026-43634
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/hestiacp-deserialization-rce-via-web-terminal