CVE-2025-0253VulnerabilityPublished 25 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-0253: HCL Software IEM · Session Fixation

Affects HCL Software IEMSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 2.0 Low.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

2.0Low

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 13% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: None
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
Privileges Required: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 25 Jul 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
HCL Software IEM	Affected =1.2	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability, organizations should: 1) Apply any available patches or updates from HCL as soon as they are released. 2) Review and enforce secure cookie attributes in the IEM application configuration, ensuring cookies use HttpOnly, Secure, and SameSite flags appropriately to prevent session fixation and cross-site attacks. 3) Implement additional session management controls such as regenerating session IDs upon authentication and invalidating old sessions. 4) Conduct internal security assessments and penetration testing focused on session management to identify and remediate weaknesses. 5) Educate users about phishing and social engineering risks that could facilitate session fixation attacks requiring user interaction. 6) Monitor logs for suspicious session activity that could indicate exploitation attempts. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on configuration hardening, session lifecycle management, and user awareness tailored to the specifics of this vulnerability.

Description

HCL IEM is affected by a cookie attribute not set vulnerability due to inconsistency of certain security-related configurations which could increase exposure to potential vulnerabilities.

Impact

For European organizations using HCL IEM version 1.2, this vulnerability could lead to unauthorized access to enterprise management functions if exploited. Although the severity is low and exploitation requires high privileges and user interaction, the risk remains for internal threat actors or sophisticated attackers who can trick users into interacting with malicious links or scripts. Compromise of session integrity could expose sensitive operational data or allow manipulation of enterprise management workflows, impacting business continuity and data confidentiality. Given that HCL IEM is used for enterprise management, unauthorized access could disrupt monitoring and control processes. However, the limited impact on integrity and availability reduces the risk of direct system damage or downtime. The vulnerability's low CVSS score suggests it is not a critical threat but should be addressed to maintain robust session security and prevent potential lateral movement within networks.

CWE-384Session Fixation (opens in a new tab)
Compound weaknessOWASP Top 10 A07:2025: Authentication Failures (opens in a new tab)
Authenticating a user, or otherwise establishing a new user session, without invalidating any existing session identifier gives an attacker the opportunity to steal authenticated sessions.
Architecture and Design
Invalidate any existing session identifiers prior to authorizing a new user session.
Architecture and Design
For platforms such as ASP that do not generate new values for sessionid cookies, utilize a secondary cookie. In this approach, set a secondary cookie on the user's browser to a random value and set a session variable to the same value.
Operation · Firewall
Use an application firewall that can detect attacks against this weakness. It can be beneficial in cases in which the code cannot be fixed (because it is controlled by a third party), as an emergency prevention measure while more comprehensive software assurance measures are applied, or to provide defense in depth.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Session Management (opens in a new tab)
OWASP Authentication (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V3.2.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Session Credential Falsification through Forging (opens in a new tab)
Accessing/Intercepting/Modifying HTTP Cookies (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Opaque Client-based Data Tokens (opens in a new tab)
Session Credential Falsification through Prediction (opens in a new tab)
Reusing Session IDs (aka Session Replay) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

support.hcl-software.com/csm?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0122368 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 1 Aug 2025, 01:04 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-384

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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