CVE-2018-25117 CRITICAL

CVE-2018-25117: VestaCP Debian Installer Malicious Backdoor Supply Chain Compromise

Vendor Vesta
Product Control Panel (CP)
Weakness CWE-506
Published October 15, 2025
Last update March 23, 2026

CVSS base score

9.3/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:H/SI:H/SA:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

VestaCP commit a3f0fa1 (2018-05-31) up to commit ee03eff (2018-06-13) contain embedded malicious code that resulted in a supply-chain compromise. New installations created from the compromised installer since at least May 2018 were subject to installation of Linux/ChachaDDoS, a multi-stage DDoS bot that uses Lua for second- and third-stage components. The compromise leaked administrative credentials (base64-encoded admin password and server domain) to an external URL during installation and/or resulted in the installer dropping and executing a DDoS malware payload under local system privileges. Compromised servers were subsequently observed participating in large-scale DDoS activity. Vesta acknowledged exploitation in the wild in October 2018.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

October 15, 2025 CVE published
March 23, 2026 Record updated