CVE-2021-46850 is a high-severity command injection vulnerability affecting versions of myVesta Control Panel prior to 0.9.8-26-43 and Vesta Control Panel prior to 0.9.8-26. The vulnerability allows an authenticated remote administrative user to execute arbitrary system commands by manipulating the 'v_sftp_license' parameter in HTTP POST requests sent to the '/edit/server' endpoint. This flaw arises due to insufficient input validation or improper sanitization of this parameter, categorized under CWE-88 (Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command). Exploitation requires administrative credentials, but no user interaction beyond sending the crafted HTTP request is necessary. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 7.2, reflecting high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, as successful exploitation can lead to full system compromise, data exfiltration, or disruption of services. The vulnerability is network exploitable (AV:N), with low attack complexity (AC:L), but requires high privileges (PR:H). No known public exploits have been reported yet, and no official patches or vendor advisories are linked in the provided data. The affected products are control panels commonly used for server management, which typically run on Linux-based hosting environments and are used by web hosting providers and enterprises to manage web servers, databases, and related services.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk, especially for those relying on myVesta or Vesta Control Panels to manage their web hosting infrastructure. Successful exploitation could lead to unauthorized command execution, enabling attackers to gain full control over the affected servers. This could result in data breaches involving sensitive customer or corporate data, disruption of hosted services, defacement of websites, or use of compromised servers as pivot points for further attacks within the network. Given the administrative access requirement, insider threats or compromised administrative credentials could be leveraged by attackers. The impact extends to confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical systems. Organizations in sectors such as finance, healthcare, e-commerce, and government, which often host sensitive data and require high availability, could face regulatory penalties under GDPR if data breaches occur. Additionally, disruption of services could damage reputation and cause financial losses.

European organizations should immediately verify if they are using vulnerable versions of myVesta or Vesta Control Panels. If so, they should upgrade to the latest patched versions as soon as they become available from the vendor. In the absence of official patches, organizations should implement compensating controls such as restricting administrative access to trusted IP addresses via firewall rules or VPNs, enforcing strong multi-factor authentication for administrative accounts, and monitoring logs for suspicious POST requests to the '/edit/server' endpoint, especially those containing the 'v_sftp_license' parameter. Network segmentation should be employed to isolate management interfaces from general user networks. Additionally, organizations should conduct regular credential audits to ensure administrative accounts have not been compromised. Implementing Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block command injection patterns targeting this parameter can provide temporary protection. Finally, organizations should prepare incident response plans to quickly address any exploitation attempts.