CVE-2025-41749VulnerabilityPublished 9 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-41749: 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, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.1High

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

EPSS: 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 50% 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 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
Phoenix Contact FL SWITCH 2005	Affected =0.0.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should implement the following specific mitigations: 1) Immediately restrict access to the FL SWITCH 2005 web management interface to trusted networks and users only, ideally via VPN or secure management VLANs. 2) Educate users with access to the management interface about the risks of clicking unsolicited or suspicious links, emphasizing social engineering awareness. 3) Monitor network traffic and logs for unusual requests to port_util.php or unexpected configuration changes. 5) Employ web application firewalls (WAFs) or intrusion prevention systems (IPS) capable of detecting and blocking XSS payloads targeting the management interface. 6) Enforce strong authentication and session management policies, even though session hijacking is mitigated by httpOnly cookies, to reduce risk from other attack vectors. 7) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing of OT network devices to identify and remediate similar vulnerabilities proactively.

Description

An XSS vulnerability in port_util.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, and critical infrastructure sectors that deploy Phoenix Contact FL SWITCH 2005 devices, this vulnerability poses a significant risk. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized modification of network switch configurations, potentially disrupting network operations, causing denial of service, or enabling further lateral attacks within industrial control systems. Although the vulnerability does not allow direct system compromise or session hijacking, manipulation of device parameters can degrade network reliability and security posture. Given the importance of industrial network switches in operational technology (OT) environments, any disruption can have cascading effects on production lines, safety systems, and critical services. The requirement for user interaction limits mass exploitation but targeted spear-phishing or social engineering campaigns could be effective. The lack of known exploits currently reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate it, as attackers may develop exploits following public disclosure.

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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