CVE-2025-1997VulnerabilityPublished 27 Mar 2025Updated 29 Sep 2025

CVE-2025-1997: IBM UrbanCode Deploy · Basic XSS

Affects IBM UrbanCode DeploySource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.4 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.4Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 21% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
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: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
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: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on 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 27 Mar 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 2026-10-26.

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
IBM UrbanCode Deploy	Affected =7.0 =7.1 =7.2 =7.3	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-1997 effectively, European organizations should: 1) Restrict access to the IBM UrbanCode Deploy web interface strictly to trusted and authenticated users, employing strong authentication mechanisms such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of unauthorized access. 2) Implement strict input validation and output encoding on all user-supplied data fields within the UCD interface, either by applying vendor patches when available or by using web application firewalls (WAFs) configured to detect and block XSS payloads targeting the application. 3) Conduct regular security audits and code reviews of any custom scripts or plugins integrated with UCD to ensure they do not introduce additional injection vectors. 4) Educate users about the risks of interacting with untrusted content within the UCD interface and encourage cautious behavior to avoid falling victim to social engineering attacks that could trigger the vulnerability. 5) Monitor logs and network traffic for unusual activity indicative of attempted XSS exploitation or lateral movement following a successful attack. 6) Engage with IBM support to obtain and apply any forthcoming patches or updates addressing this vulnerability promptly. 7) Consider segmenting the deployment environment network to limit the blast radius in case of compromise.

Description

IBM UrbanCode Deploy (UCD) 7.0 through 7.0.5.25, 7.1 through 7.1.2.21, 7.2 through 7.2.3.14, and 7.3 through 7.3.2.0 / IBM DevOps Deploy 8.0 through 8.0.1.4 and 8.1 through 8.1 is vulnerable to HTML injection. This vulnerability may allow a user to embed arbitrary HTML tags in the Web UI potentially leading to sensitive information disclosure.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-1997 can be substantial, especially for those relying on IBM UrbanCode Deploy or DevOps Deploy for critical software deployment and release management processes. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to execute malicious scripts within the context of authorized users, potentially leading to unauthorized disclosure of sensitive deployment configurations, credentials, or other confidential information. This could facilitate further attacks such as privilege escalation, lateral movement, or supply chain compromise. The integrity of deployment pipelines could be undermined, risking the introduction of malicious code into production environments. Given the collaborative nature of DevOps tools, the vulnerability could also affect multiple teams and projects, amplifying the operational risk. Additionally, compliance with European data protection regulations such as GDPR could be jeopardized if sensitive personal data is exposed through this vulnerability. The medium severity rating suggests that while the threat is not immediately critical, it requires timely attention to prevent exploitation in environments where multiple users have web UI access.

CWE-80Improper Neutralization of Script-Related HTML Tags in a Web Page (Basic XSS) (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighOWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special characters such as "<", ">", and "&" that could be interpreted as web-scripting elements when they are sent to a downstream component that processes web pages.
Implementation
Carefully check each input parameter against a rigorous positive specification (allowlist) defining the specific characters and format allowed. All input should be neutralized, not just parameters that the user is supposed to specify, but all data in the request, including hidden fields, cookies, headers, the URL…
Implementation · Output Encoding
Use and specify an output encoding that can be handled by the downstream component that is reading the output. Common encodings include ISO-8859-1, UTF-7, and UTF-8.
Implementation
With Struts, write all data from form beans with the bean's filter attribute set to true.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Targeting Non-Script Elements (opens in a new tab)
PHP Remote File Inclusion (opens in a new tab)
XSS Through HTTP Query Strings (opens in a new tab)
XSS Through HTTP Headers (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

ibm.com/support/pages/node/7229035 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 30 Sep 2025, 00:16 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-80

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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