CVE-2025-50870 identifies a critical vulnerability in the Institute-of-Current-Students 1.0 application, specifically within the mydetailsstudent.php endpoint. The vulnerability arises from improper access control mechanisms on the 'myds' GET parameter, which accepts an email address and returns the corresponding student's personal information. Crucially, the application fails to validate the identity or permissions of the requester, allowing any user—authenticated or unauthenticated—to manipulate the email parameter and retrieve sensitive student data. This flaw leads to an information disclosure vulnerability, enabling attackers to enumerate student records by iterating over email addresses. The lack of authentication or authorization checks means that the confidentiality of student personal information is severely compromised. Although no CVSS score is assigned and no known exploits are reported in the wild yet, the vulnerability's nature suggests a high risk of exploitation due to its straightforward attack vector and the sensitivity of the data exposed. The absence of patches or mitigation guidance further elevates the threat level. This vulnerability exemplifies an Incorrect Access Control issue, where the application fails to enforce proper access restrictions on sensitive endpoints, exposing private data to unauthorized parties.

For European organizations, particularly educational institutions or service providers using the Institute-of-Current-Students platform or similar systems, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to student privacy and data protection compliance. The unauthorized disclosure of personal student information could lead to violations of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), resulting in legal penalties and reputational damage. The exposure of personally identifiable information (PII) can facilitate identity theft, phishing campaigns, and targeted social engineering attacks against students or staff. Additionally, the breach of trust may undermine institutional credibility and affect student enrollment or partnerships. Since the vulnerability does not require authentication or user interaction, it can be exploited remotely and at scale, increasing the likelihood of mass data harvesting. European organizations must consider the potential for regulatory scrutiny and the operational impact of remediating such breaches, including incident response and notification obligations.

To mitigate this vulnerability, organizations should implement strict access control checks on the mydetailsstudent.php endpoint, ensuring that any request for student information validates the requester's identity and verifies their authorization to access the specific data. This includes enforcing authentication and role-based access control (RBAC) mechanisms that restrict data access to authorized users only. Input validation should be enhanced to prevent arbitrary email enumeration, possibly by limiting queries to the authenticated user's own data or by implementing server-side filtering. Logging and monitoring should be established to detect unusual access patterns indicative of enumeration attempts. Organizations should also conduct a comprehensive audit of similar endpoints to identify and remediate other access control weaknesses. If possible, immediate deployment of patches or updates from the vendor is recommended once available. In the interim, restricting access to the vulnerable endpoint via network controls or web application firewalls (WAFs) can reduce exposure. Finally, organizations should review and update their data privacy policies and incident response plans to prepare for potential exploitation scenarios.