VulnerabilityPublished 7 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-25009: Elastic Kibana · XSS or 'Cross-site Scripting'

Affects Elastic KibanaSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

8.7High

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 14% 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:H/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
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: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to 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 7 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 26 Oct 2026.

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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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
Elastic Kibana	Affected 7.0.0 – 9.1.0 5 affected builds	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Monitor Elastic's official channels for patches and apply them immediately upon release to affected Kibana versions.
Until patches are available, restrict file upload permissions to trusted users only and limit the types of files accepted to reduce attack surface.
Implement strict input validation and sanitization on all user inputs, especially file metadata and case file contents.
Deploy Content Security Policies (CSP) to restrict execution of unauthorized scripts within Kibana interfaces.
Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing focusing on web application vulnerabilities in Kibana deployments.
Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce risk from compromised credentials.
Monitor logs and user activity for unusual behavior indicative of exploitation attempts.
Educate users about the risks of interacting with untrusted content within Kibana dashboards.
Consider network segmentation to isolate Kibana instances and limit lateral movement in case of compromise.
Review and harden Kibana configuration settings to minimize exposure of sensitive data and administrative functions.

Description

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation in Kibana can lead to Stored XSS via case file upload.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-25009 can be substantial. Kibana is widely used across sectors such as finance, telecommunications, government, and critical infrastructure for data visualization and operational intelligence. Successful exploitation could lead to unauthorized disclosure of sensitive data, including personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property, and operational metrics. Attackers could leverage the XSS vulnerability to perform session hijacking, execute arbitrary actions within Kibana dashboards, or pivot to other internal systems, potentially disrupting business operations. Given the scope change indicated in the CVSS vector, the vulnerability could affect multiple users and systems beyond the initially compromised account. This is particularly critical for organizations subject to GDPR and other data protection regulations, as data breaches could result in regulatory penalties and reputational damage. Additionally, the requirement for user interaction and privileges means insider threats or compromised credentials could facilitate exploitation. The absence of known exploits currently provides a window for proactive defense, but the high severity demands urgent attention to prevent future attacks.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
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)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-8-18-8-8-19-5-9-0-8-and-9-1-5-security-update-esa-2025-20/382449 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 7 Oct 2025, 15:02 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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