CVE-2025-48987VulnerabilityPublished 20 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-48987: Revive Adserver · Cross-site Scripting

Affects Revive AdserverSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.3 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.0 base score

6.3Medium

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

EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 45% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
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: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
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 20 Nov 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
Revive Revive Adserver	Affected =6 =5	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-48987 effectively, European organizations should implement several specific measures beyond generic advice: 1) Apply strict input validation and output encoding on all user-supplied data within Revive Adserver, ensuring that special characters are properly escaped to prevent script injection. 2) Deploy a robust Content Security Policy (CSP) that restricts the execution of inline scripts and limits sources of executable code, reducing the impact of any injected scripts. 3) Monitor web server and application logs for suspicious URL patterns or repeated failed attempts that may indicate exploitation attempts. 4) Educate users and administrators about phishing risks and encourage caution when clicking on unsolicited links related to ad management platforms. 5) Isolate the ad server environment from critical internal networks to limit lateral movement if compromise occurs. 6) Regularly update and patch Revive Adserver as soon as official fixes become available, and subscribe to vendor security advisories. 7) Consider implementing Web Application Firewalls (WAF) with custom rules to detect and block reflected XSS payloads targeting the ad server. 8) Review and restrict permissions for ad server accounts to minimize potential damage from compromised sessions. These targeted actions will reduce the likelihood and impact of exploitation.

Description

Improper Neutralization of Input in Revive Adserver 5.5.2 and 6.0.1 and earlier versions causes a potential reflected XSS attack.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-48987 can be significant, especially for those relying on Revive Adserver to manage digital advertising campaigns. Exploitation could lead to unauthorized disclosure of user session information, enabling account takeover or unauthorized access to ad management consoles. Integrity of ad content could be compromised, allowing attackers to inject misleading or malicious advertisements, which may damage brand reputation and user trust. Availability could also be affected if attackers use the vulnerability to cause denial-of-service conditions or disrupt ad delivery. Given the importance of digital advertising in European markets, such disruptions could result in financial losses and regulatory scrutiny, particularly under GDPR if user data is exposed. The requirement for user interaction limits automated exploitation but does not eliminate risk, as phishing campaigns could be used to target employees or customers. Organizations with public-facing ad servers are at higher risk, and those lacking robust input validation or security controls are more vulnerable. The absence of known exploits currently provides a window for proactive mitigation before active attacks emerge.

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

hackerone.com/reports/3399191 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Nov 2025, 20:21 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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