CVE-2025-48285 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability identified in the sbouey Falang multilanguage plugin, affecting versions up to 1.3.61. Falang multilanguage is a tool commonly used to provide multilingual support on websites, particularly those built on content management systems like Joomla. The vulnerability arises because the plugin does not adequately verify the origin of requests that trigger state-changing actions. As a result, an attacker can craft a malicious web page that, when visited by an authenticated user of a vulnerable Falang multilanguage installation, causes the user’s browser to perform unintended actions on the target site without their consent. The CVSS 3.1 base score of 4.3 reflects a medium severity level, with the vector indicating that the attack can be performed remotely over the network (AV:N), requires no privileges (PR:N), but does require user interaction (UI:R). The impact is limited to integrity (I:L), with no confidentiality or availability impact. There are no known exploits in the wild at the time of publication, and no patches have been linked yet. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-352, which covers CSRF issues where insufficient verification of request origin allows unauthorized commands to be transmitted from a user that the web application trusts. This vulnerability could allow attackers to manipulate multilingual content or settings, potentially defacing or misconfiguring websites that rely on the Falang multilanguage plugin.

For European organizations, especially those operating multilingual websites using the Falang multilanguage plugin, this vulnerability poses a risk of unauthorized content manipulation or configuration changes. Such unauthorized changes could lead to misinformation, reputational damage, or disruption of user experience on corporate, governmental, or e-commerce platforms. Although the confidentiality and availability impacts are minimal, the integrity compromise can undermine trust in the affected websites. Organizations in sectors such as government, media, education, and e-commerce that rely on multilingual content delivery are particularly at risk. Additionally, given the cross-site nature of the attack, users with authenticated sessions on vulnerable sites could be targeted via malicious links or websites, increasing the attack surface. The lack of known exploits in the wild currently reduces immediate risk, but the presence of a public CVE and medium severity rating suggests that attackers may develop exploits in the future, necessitating proactive mitigation.

European organizations should implement specific mitigations beyond generic advice to address this CSRF vulnerability effectively. First, apply any available patches or updates from the sbouey Falang multilanguage plugin vendor as soon as they are released. In the absence of patches, organizations should implement anti-CSRF tokens in all state-changing requests handled by the plugin, ensuring that requests are validated for authenticity. Additionally, configuring web application firewalls (WAFs) to detect and block suspicious CSRF patterns can provide a temporary protective layer. Organizations should also review and restrict the use of persistent authentication cookies or tokens that could be exploited in CSRF attacks. User education campaigns to raise awareness about the risks of clicking on untrusted links while authenticated on sensitive sites can reduce the likelihood of successful exploitation. Finally, monitoring web server and application logs for unusual POST requests or changes in multilingual content can help detect exploitation attempts early.