VulnerabilityPublished 9 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-41748: Phoenix Contact FL SWITCH 2005 · Cross-site Scripting

Affects Phoenix Contact FL SWITCH 2005Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.1 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.1High

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

EPSS: 9.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 95% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

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: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
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: 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 impacted component.
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 on the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 9 Dec 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
Phoenix Contact FL SWITCH 2005	Affected =0.0.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should implement the following specific mitigations: 1) Restrict access to the FL SWITCH 2005 web management interface to trusted networks and IP addresses using network segmentation and firewall rules. 2) Employ multi-factor authentication (MFA) for accessing management interfaces to reduce the risk of unauthorized access. 3) Educate users about phishing and social engineering risks to minimize the chance of clicking malicious links. 4) Monitor network traffic and device logs for unusual configuration changes or access patterns indicative of exploitation attempts. 5) Implement web application firewalls (WAFs) or intrusion prevention systems (IPS) that can detect and block XSS payloads targeting the management interface. 6) Coordinate with Phoenix Contact for timely patch releases and apply updates as soon as they become available. 7) Where possible, disable or limit web-based management interfaces and use alternative secure management methods such as out-of-band management. 8) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on OT environments to identify and remediate similar vulnerabilities.

Description

An XSS vulnerability in pxc_Dot1xCfg.php can be used by an unauthenticated remote attacker to trick an authenticated user to click on the link provided by the attacker in order to change parameters available via web based management (WBM). The vulnerability does not provide access to system-level resources such as operating system internals or privileged functions. Access is limited to device configuration parameters that are available in the context of the web application. The session cookie is secured by the httpOnly Flag. Therefore an attacker is not able to take over the session of an authenticated user.

Impact

For European organizations, especially those in industrial automation, manufacturing, energy, and critical infrastructure sectors, this vulnerability poses a significant risk. The ability to manipulate device configuration remotely through social engineering could lead to network disruptions, degraded performance, or unauthorized network segmentation changes. Although the attacker cannot gain full system control or hijack sessions, altering switch configurations can impact network availability and integrity, potentially causing downtime or facilitating further attacks. Given the widespread use of Phoenix Contact products in European industrial environments, exploitation could affect operational technology (OT) networks, which often have less stringent security controls than IT networks. This could lead to cascading effects on production lines, energy distribution, or transportation systems. The requirement for user interaction limits mass exploitation but targeted spear-phishing or social engineering campaigns could be effective. The absence of known exploits currently provides a window for proactive mitigation.

Summary

CVE-2025-41748 is a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability identified in the Phoenix Contact FL SWITCH 2005, specifically in the pxc_Dot1xCfg.php component of its web-based management (WBM) interface. The vulnerability arises from improper neutralization of input during web page generation (CWE-79), allowing an unauthenticated remote attacker to craft a malicious URL that, when visited by an authenticated user, can manipulate configuration parameters exposed by the WBM. Although the attacker cannot access system-level resources or privileged OS functions, they can alter device settings within the scope of the web application, potentially impacting network behavior. The session cookie is protected by the httpOnly flag, which prevents attackers from stealing session tokens via client-side scripts, thus limiting the attack to parameter manipulation rather than session hijacking. The CVSS v3.1 score of 7.1 reflects a high severity due to network attack vector (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), no privileges required (PR:N), but requiring user interaction (UI:R). The scope is changed (S:C) because the vulnerability affects components beyond the initially vulnerable component, impacting confidentiality, integrity, and availability to a limited extent (C:L/I:L/A:L). No patches or known exploits are currently available, but the vulnerability's presence in industrial network switches used in critical infrastructure raises concerns about potential disruption or unauthorized configuration changes.

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

certvde.com/de/advisories/VDE-2025-071 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 16 Dec 2025, 10:30 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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