CVE-2025-5466VulnerabilityPublished 12 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-5466: Ivanti Connect Secure · XML Entity Expansion

Affects Ivanti Connect SecureSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.9 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.9Medium

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

EPSS: 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 51% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

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

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: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 12 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 2026-10-25.

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

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability effectively, European organizations should: 1) Immediately apply the vendor-provided patches released on August 2, 2025, for all affected Ivanti products to eliminate the XML entity expansion flaw. 2) Restrict administrative access to Ivanti management interfaces using network segmentation, VPNs, and strict access control lists to limit exposure to trusted personnel only. 3) Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrative accounts to reduce the risk of credential compromise. 4) Monitor logs and network traffic for unusual XML payloads or spikes in resource usage indicative of attempted XML entity expansion attacks. 5) Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing focused on XML processing components and administrative interfaces. 6) Consider deploying Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) or Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) with signatures or heuristics to detect and block malicious XML payloads targeting this vulnerability. 7) Educate administrators on the risks of XML-based attacks and enforce strong password policies to minimize insider threat risks.

Description

XEE in Ivanti Connect Secure before 22.7R2.8 or 22.8R2, Ivanti Policy Secure before 22.7R1.5, Ivanti ZTA Gateway before 22.8R2.3-723 and Ivanti Neurons for Secure Access before 22.8R1.4 (Fix deployed on 02-Aug-2025) allows a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to trigger a denial of service

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-5466 can be significant, particularly for enterprises relying on Ivanti’s secure access and policy enforcement solutions. These products are often deployed in critical network security infrastructure, including VPN gateways, zero trust access controls, and policy management systems. A successful DoS attack could disrupt secure remote access capabilities, leading to downtime, loss of productivity, and potential exposure to other security risks due to interrupted security controls. Given that the vulnerability requires administrative authentication, the risk is primarily from insider threats or compromised admin credentials. However, the widespread use of Ivanti products in sectors such as finance, healthcare, government, and large enterprises across Europe means that service outages could have cascading effects on business continuity and regulatory compliance, especially under GDPR and other data protection laws. The denial of service could also impair incident response and security monitoring capabilities, increasing the risk of further exploitation during downtime.

CWE-776Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs ('XML Entity Expansion') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumOWASP Top 10 A02:2025: Security Misconfiguration (opens in a new tab)
The product uses XML documents and allows their structure to be defined with a Document Type Definition (DTD), but it does not properly control the number of recursive definitions of entities.
Operation
If possible, prohibit the use of DTDs or use an XML parser that limits the expansion of recursive DTD entities.
Implementation
Before parsing XML files with associated DTDs, scan for recursive entity declarations and do not continue parsing potentially explosive content.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Exponential Data Expansion (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

forums.ivanti.com/s/article/August-Security-Advisory-Ivanti-Connect-Secure-Policy-Secure-ZTA-Gateways-Multiple-CVEs?language=en_US (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 12 Aug 2025, 15:34 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-776

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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