CVE-2025-25018VulnerabilityPublished 10 Oct 2025Updated 26 Feb 2026

CVE-2025-25018: 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, 06:26 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 13% 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 10 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 2026-10-26.

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
Elastic Kibana	Affected =7.0.0 =8.0.0 =8.19.0 =9.0.0 =9.1.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Organizations should immediately prepare to apply official patches from Elastic once they become available, as patching is the most effective mitigation. Until patches are released, administrators should restrict access to Kibana interfaces to trusted networks and users only, employing strong authentication and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of unauthorized access. Implement strict input validation and output encoding on any custom plugins or integrations that interact with Kibana to minimize injection risks. Deploy Content Security Policies (CSP) to restrict the execution of untrusted scripts within Kibana’s web interface. Regularly audit Kibana user roles and permissions to enforce the principle of least privilege, limiting the number of users who can input or modify content that might be rendered in the UI. Monitor logs and network traffic for unusual activity indicative of attempted exploitation. Consider isolating Kibana instances from direct internet exposure using VPNs or reverse proxies with additional security controls. Finally, educate users about the risks of interacting with untrusted content within Kibana dashboards or visualizations.

Description

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation in Kibana can lead to stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Impact

The impact of CVE-2025-25018 is substantial for organizations using Elastic Kibana, especially those relying on it for monitoring, logging, and data visualization in critical infrastructure, financial services, healthcare, and government sectors. Successful exploitation can lead to the execution of arbitrary JavaScript in the context of authenticated users, potentially exposing sensitive information such as authentication tokens, user data, and configuration details. Attackers could hijack user sessions, perform unauthorized actions, or pivot to other internal systems. Although availability is not directly affected, the compromise of confidentiality and integrity can lead to broader security incidents, including data breaches and loss of trust. The requirement for user interaction and some level of authentication somewhat limits the attack surface but does not eliminate risk, particularly in environments with many users or less stringent access controls. The widespread adoption of Kibana globally means the threat is relevant to many organizations, especially those with internet-facing Kibana instances or insufficient network segmentation.

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

https//discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-8-18-8-8-19-5-9-0-8-9-1-5-security-update-esa-2025-17/382451 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Feb 2026, 01:10 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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