CVE-2025-25017 is a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability identified in Elastic Kibana, a widely used data visualization and analytics platform. The root cause is improper neutralization of input during the generation of web pages, classified under CWE-79. This flaw allows an attacker to inject malicious scripts into Kibana's web interface, which are then executed in the context of the victim's browser when they interact with the compromised content. The vulnerability affects multiple versions of Kibana, specifically 7.0.0, 8.0.0, 8.19.0, 9.0.0, and 9.1.0, indicating a broad impact across recent and currently supported releases. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 8.2, reflecting a high severity level. The vector string (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N) indicates that the attack can be performed remotely over the network with low attack complexity, requires no privileges, but does require user interaction. The scope is changed (S:C), meaning the vulnerability affects resources beyond the security scope of the vulnerable component. The impact on confidentiality is low, but integrity is high, and availability is not affected. While no public exploits are known at this time, the vulnerability poses a significant risk due to the potential for attackers to execute arbitrary scripts, steal session tokens, or manipulate Kibana dashboards and data. Elastic has not yet published patches, so organizations must monitor for updates and consider interim mitigations. The vulnerability is particularly concerning for environments where Kibana is exposed to untrusted users or the internet, as it could be leveraged for targeted attacks or lateral movement within networks.

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-25017 can be substantial, especially for those relying heavily on Elastic Stack for operational intelligence, security monitoring, and business analytics. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to execute malicious scripts in the context of Kibana users, potentially leading to unauthorized data manipulation, theft of authentication tokens, or execution of actions with the privileges of the compromised user. This could undermine data integrity and trust in analytics outputs, disrupt incident response workflows, or facilitate further compromise within the network. Sectors such as finance, telecommunications, government, and critical infrastructure, which often deploy Kibana for security information and event management (SIEM) and operational dashboards, are particularly at risk. Additionally, organizations with Kibana instances accessible over the internet or with weak access controls face higher exposure. The vulnerability’s requirement for user interaction limits mass exploitation but does not eliminate targeted phishing or social engineering risks. Given the widespread adoption of Elastic products in Europe, the potential for impact is broad and could affect both private and public sector entities.

1. Monitor Elastic’s official channels for the release of security patches addressing CVE-2025-25017 and apply them promptly across all affected Kibana instances. 2. Until patches are available, restrict access to Kibana dashboards to trusted internal networks and authenticated users only, minimizing exposure to untrusted or external users. 3. Implement strict Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to limit the execution of unauthorized scripts within Kibana’s web interface. 4. Conduct thorough input validation and output encoding on any user-generated content or custom plugins integrated with Kibana to prevent injection of malicious scripts. 5. Educate users on the risks of interacting with suspicious links or content related to Kibana dashboards to reduce the likelihood of successful social engineering. 6. Review and tighten user permissions within Kibana, following the principle of least privilege to limit the potential damage from compromised accounts. 7. Employ web application firewalls (WAFs) with rules tuned to detect and block common XSS attack patterns targeting Kibana. 8. Regularly audit Kibana logs and monitor for unusual activity that could indicate exploitation attempts or successful attacks.