CVE-2025-20369VulnerabilityPublished 1 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-20369: Splunk Enterprise · The software uses XML documents and allows their structure to be defined with a Document Type Definition (DTD), but it does not properly control the number of recursive definitions of entities.

Affects Splunk EnterpriseSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.6 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.6Medium

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

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 23% 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:U/C:N/I:L/A:L

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

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: 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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within 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: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 1 Oct 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
Splunk Splunk Enterprise	Affected =10.0 =9.4 =9.3 =9.2	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should prioritize upgrading affected Splunk Enterprise and Cloud Platform instances to versions 9.4.4, 9.3.6, 9.2.8 or later, where the issue is resolved. Until patches are applied, organizations should restrict dashboard editing permissions to trusted users only, minimizing the risk of malicious input via the dashboard tab label field. Implement strict input validation and sanitization on XML inputs where possible. Network segmentation and access controls should limit exposure of Splunk management interfaces to only authorized personnel and systems. Monitoring for unusual dashboard configuration changes or spikes in resource usage can help detect exploitation attempts. Additionally, organizations should review and harden XML parser configurations to disable DTD processing or limit entity expansions if feasible. Regular security audits and vulnerability scanning of Splunk deployments will help identify unpatched instances. Finally, maintaining an incident response plan that includes recovery from Splunk service disruptions will reduce operational impact.

Description

In Splunk Enterprise versions below 9.4.4, 9.3.6, and 9.2.8, and Splunk Cloud Platform versions below 9.3.2411.108, 9.3.2408.118 and 9.2.2406.123, a low privilege user that does not hold the "admin" or "power" Splunk roles could perform an extensible markup language (XML) external entity (XXE) injection through the dashboard tab label field. The XXE injection has the potential to cause denial of service (DoS) attacks.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability can be significant given Splunk's widespread use in enterprise environments for security monitoring, operational intelligence, and compliance reporting. A successful DoS attack could disrupt log ingestion, alerting, and dashboard functionalities, impairing security teams' ability to detect and respond to incidents promptly. This could increase the risk of undetected breaches or delayed responses to ongoing attacks. Additionally, availability issues in Splunk could affect compliance with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, which mandates timely incident detection and response. Organizations relying heavily on Splunk for operational continuity may experience service degradation or outages, impacting business operations and potentially causing financial and reputational damage. Although the vulnerability does not allow data exfiltration or privilege escalation, the denial of service impact on a critical security platform is a serious concern for European enterprises.

References

advisory.splunk.com/advisories/SVD-2025-1004 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 1 Oct 2025, 16:18 UTC

Technical details

References

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