CVE-2025-40705VulnerabilityPublished 29 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-40705: ACDH-CH OpenAtlas · XSS or 'Cross-site Scripting'

Affects ACDH-CH OpenAtlasSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.1 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

5.1Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 12% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Passive
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: None
Subsequent system confidentiality: Low
Subsequent system integrity: Low
Subsequent system availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, 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: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker requires privileges that provide basic capabilities that are typically limited to settings and resources owned by a single low-privileged user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges has the ability to access only non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: Passive: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires limited interaction by the targeted user with the vulnerable system and the attacker’s payload. These interactions would be considered involuntary and do not require that the user actively subvert protections built into the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system 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 Subsequent System.
Subsequent system 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 to the Subsequent System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Aug 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
ACDH-CH OpenAtlas	Affected =8.9.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability, organizations should implement strict input validation and output encoding on all user-supplied data, especially the "name" parameter in the "/insert/acquisition" POST endpoint. Employing Content Security Policy (CSP) headers can help reduce the impact of XSS by restricting script execution sources. Organizations should monitor for updates or patches from ACDH-CH and apply them promptly once available. In the interim, restricting access to the affected endpoint to trusted users and networks, enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of session hijacking, and educating users about the risks of interacting with suspicious links or content are recommended. Additionally, web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block malicious payloads targeting this parameter can provide a protective layer. Regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on XSS vulnerabilities should be conducted to identify and remediate similar issues proactively.

Description

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in OpenAtlas v8.9.0 from the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage (ACDH-CH), due to inadequate validation of user input when a POST request is sent. The vulnerabilities could allow a remote user to send specially crafted queries to an authenticated user and steal their session cookie details, via the "/insert/acquisition" petition, "name" parameter.

Impact

For European organizations using OpenAtlas v8.9.0, particularly those involved in digital humanities and cultural heritage sectors, this vulnerability poses a risk of session hijacking and unauthorized access to sensitive data or administrative functions. The exploitation of this XSS flaw could lead to compromised user accounts, data leakage, and potential manipulation of cultural heritage data or research information. Given that OpenAtlas is used in academic and research institutions, the impact could extend to loss of data integrity and trust in digital archives. Additionally, compromised sessions could be leveraged to pivot attacks within organizational networks, increasing the risk of broader security incidents. The medium severity rating suggests a moderate risk, but the requirement for user interaction and authentication limits the attack surface somewhat. However, the cultural and academic importance of affected organizations in Europe elevates the significance of timely mitigation.

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

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 29 Aug 2025, 12:02 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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