CVE-2025-49541VulnerabilityPublished 8 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-49541: Adobe ColdFusion · Cross-site Scripting (Stored XSS)

Affects Adobe ColdFusionSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.3 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.3Medium

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

EPSS: 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 58% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

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

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Adjacent: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack, but the attack is limited at the protocol level to a logically adjacent topology. This can mean an attack must be launched from the same shared physical (e.g., Bluetooth or IEEE 802.11) or logical (e.g., local IP subnet) network, or from within a secure or otherwise limited administrative domain (e.g., MPLS, secure VPN to an administrative network zone).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
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: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 8 Jul 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
Adobe ColdFusion	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

1. Restrict access to ColdFusion administrative and application interfaces strictly to trusted internal IP ranges and implement network segmentation to isolate vulnerable systems. 2. Employ Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block malicious script payloads targeting form inputs in ColdFusion applications. 3. Conduct thorough input validation and output encoding on all form fields within ColdFusion applications to prevent injection of executable scripts; use ColdFusion's built-in functions for sanitization where possible. 4. Enforce the principle of least privilege by limiting high-privileged user accounts that can input data into vulnerable forms, and monitor their activities closely. 5. Implement Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict the execution of unauthorized scripts in browsers accessing internal applications. 6. Regularly audit and review internal ColdFusion applications for insecure coding practices that could allow stored XSS. 7. Monitor internal network traffic and logs for unusual activity indicative of attempted exploitation. 8. Stay updated with Adobe's security advisories and apply patches promptly once they become available. 9. Educate internal users about the risks of clicking on suspicious links or interacting with untrusted content within internal applications.

Description

ColdFusion versions 2025.2, 2023.14, 2021.20 and earlier are affected by a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could be abused by a high-privileged attacker to inject malicious scripts into vulnerable form fields. Malicious JavaScript may be executed in a victim’s browser when they browse to the page containing the vulnerable field, scope is changed. The vulnerable component is restricted to internal IP addresses.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-49541 can be significant in environments where Adobe ColdFusion is used extensively for internal web applications. Since the vulnerability is limited to internal IP scopes, it primarily threatens internal users and administrators who have access to the affected ColdFusion applications. Exploitation could lead to the compromise of user sessions, theft of sensitive internal data, and potential pivoting to other internal systems. This is particularly concerning for organizations in regulated sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government, where internal data confidentiality and integrity are critical. The medium severity rating suggests that while the vulnerability is not trivial, it requires a high-privileged attacker and user interaction, somewhat limiting the attack surface. However, in large enterprises with many internal users and complex application environments, the risk of exploitation increases. Additionally, the lack of available patches at the time of disclosure means organizations must rely on other mitigations to reduce risk. The vulnerability could also be leveraged in targeted attacks or insider threat scenarios, which are relevant concerns for European organizations subject to strict data protection regulations like GDPR.

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

helpx.adobe.com/security/products/coldfusion/apsb25-69.html (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 15 Jul 2025, 21:50 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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