VulnerabilityPublished 19 Aug 2025Updated 20 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-51487: MoonShine · Cross-site Scripting

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.5 Medium · fixed in 3.12.5 : update affected systems when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 11:42 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.5Medium

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

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 36% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 3.12.5

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: None
Availability: None

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: 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: 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: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within 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 19 Aug 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 26 Oct 2026.

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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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

AI-suggested

Immediate upgrade to MoonShine version 3.12.5 or later, where the vulnerability is fixed, is the most effective mitigation.
If upgrading is not immediately feasible, implement strict input validation and sanitization on the CutCode Link parameter to disallow any non-HTTPS protocols, explicitly blocking "javascript:" and other potentially dangerous schemes.
Employ Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict the execution of inline scripts and limit the sources of executable scripts to trusted domains only.
Conduct a thorough audit of existing articles to identify and remove any malicious or suspicious CutCode Link entries.
Restrict article creation and update permissions to trusted users only, minimizing the risk of privilege abuse.
Educate content managers about the risks of injecting untrusted links or code.
Monitor application logs and user activity for unusual behavior indicative of exploitation attempts.
Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block attempts to inject "javascript:" payloads in article parameters.

Description

A Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability exists in MoonShine version < 3.12.5, allowing to execute arbitrary JavaScript by using "javascript:" payload, instead of the expected HTTPS protocol, in the CutCode Link parameter when creating/updating a new Article.

Impact

For European organizations using MoonShine versions prior to 3.12.5, this vulnerability poses a risk of client-side script injection leading to potential data leakage and session hijacking. Since the exploit requires high privileges to create or update articles, the threat is more significant in environments where multiple users have content management access, such as media companies, publishing platforms, or internal knowledge bases. The stored nature of the XSS means that once injected, all users viewing the affected content are at risk, potentially leading to widespread compromise of user accounts or unauthorized actions. Confidentiality breaches could expose sensitive corporate information or user credentials. Although the vulnerability does not directly affect system integrity or availability, the indirect consequences of compromised user sessions could lead to further attacks or data manipulation. European organizations with strict data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR) may face compliance risks if user data is exposed due to this vulnerability.

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

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Aug 2025, 01:08 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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