CVE-2025-41009 is a critical SQL injection vulnerability identified in the Disenno de Recursos Educativos S.L (DRED) virtual campus platform, impacting all versions of the product. The vulnerability arises from improper neutralization of special elements in SQL commands (CWE-89), specifically through the ‘buscame’ parameter in the ‘/catalogo_c/catalogo.php’ endpoint. An attacker can send crafted POST requests to this parameter to manipulate backend SQL queries, enabling unauthorized retrieval, creation, modification, or deletion of database records. This flaw requires no authentication, user interaction, or privileges, making it trivially exploitable remotely over the network. The CVSS 4.0 base score of 9.3 reflects the vulnerability’s critical nature, with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The vulnerability does not currently have known exploits in the wild, but its presence in an educational platform that likely stores sensitive student, faculty, and academic data raises significant concerns. The lack of available patches at the time of disclosure necessitates immediate defensive measures such as input validation, parameterized queries, and deployment of web application firewalls to mitigate exploitation risks. The vulnerability’s exploitation could lead to data breaches, loss of academic records, unauthorized data manipulation, and potential service outages, severely impacting institutional operations and trust.

The impact of CVE-2025-41009 on European organizations, particularly educational institutions using the DRED virtual campus platform, is substantial. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive personal data of students and staff, including academic records and potentially financial information. Attackers could alter or delete critical data, disrupting academic processes and causing operational downtime. The integrity of educational content and records could be compromised, undermining trust in the institution’s systems. Additionally, data breaches could result in regulatory penalties under GDPR, given the exposure of personal data. The availability of the platform could be affected if attackers execute destructive SQL commands, leading to denial of service. The vulnerability’s ease of exploitation without authentication or user interaction increases the likelihood of attacks, potentially from opportunistic or targeted threat actors. This risk is heightened in countries with large deployments of this platform or where educational institutions are strategic targets for cyber espionage or ransomware campaigns.

Given the absence of patches at disclosure, European organizations should implement immediate compensating controls. First, deploy web application firewalls (WAFs) with rules specifically designed to detect and block SQL injection payloads targeting the ‘buscame’ parameter and the ‘/catalogo_c/catalogo.php’ endpoint. Second, conduct thorough input validation and sanitization on all user-supplied data, enforcing strict whitelisting of allowed characters and patterns. Third, review and refactor application code to use parameterized queries or prepared statements to prevent direct concatenation of user input into SQL commands. Fourth, monitor logs for unusual database query patterns or repeated failed attempts to exploit the vulnerability. Fifth, restrict database user permissions to the minimum necessary to limit the impact of any successful injection. Finally, maintain an incident response plan tailored to data breaches and service disruptions in educational environments. Organizations should also engage with the vendor for timely patch releases and apply updates immediately upon availability.