The vulnerability is a CWE‑61 path traversal flaw in a chmod call within the cPanel Nova plugin. When an authenticated cPanel user creates a symbolic link inside their user‑controlled legacy Nova path, the plugin follows the link and applies root ownership to the target file or directory. This allows the attacker to change permissions on arbitrary system files or directories, leading to either a denial of service or local privilege escalation to root.

Affected products include WebPros cPanel and WebPros WP Squared, as well as cPanel running on CentOS 6 and CloudLinux 6. Users of these systems should verify the version of the Nova plugin and the operating system distribution to determine whether the vulnerability applies.

The EPSS score of < 1% indicates a very low probability of exploitation, yet the flaw permits local privilege escalation for authenticated cPanel users. The official data does not reference a public exploit, so it is inferred that none are known. The vulnerability is not listed in CISA KEV, but because the attacker only needs to be an authorized cPanel user, the potential impact remains significant in environments where administrators grant users file system write access. If a user could write to the legacy Nova path, they could set root permissions on critical system files or directories, creating a pathway to root access or denial of service.