CVE-2025-55288VulnerabilityPublished 18 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-55288: MGeurts genealogy · Cross-site Scripting

Affects MGeurts genealogySource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium : upgrade to 4.4.0 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 22% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 4.4.0

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
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: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
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 18 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 2026-10-26.

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

Upgrade MGeurts genealogy to 4.4.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
MGeurts genealogy	Affected <4.4.0	Fixed in 4.4.0

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability, organizations should upgrade the MGeurts genealogy application to version 4.4.0 or later, where the issue is fixed. Until the upgrade is applied, administrators should restrict access to trusted users only and monitor for suspicious activity indicative of XSS exploitation attempts. Implementing Content Security Policy (CSP) headers can help reduce the impact of XSS by restricting the execution of unauthorized scripts. Additionally, input validation and output encoding should be enforced at the application level to prevent injection of malicious scripts. Organizations should also educate users about the risks of clicking on untrusted links within the application context. Regular security audits and penetration testing focused on web application vulnerabilities can help detect similar issues proactively. Finally, logging and alerting on anomalous user behavior may help identify exploitation attempts early.

Description

Genealogy is a family tree PHP application. Prior to 4.4.0, Authenticated Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability was identified in the Genealogy application. Authenticated attackers could run arbitrary JavaScript in another user’s session, leading to session hijacking, data theft, and UI manipulation. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.4.0.

Impact

For European organizations using the MGeurts genealogy application, this vulnerability poses risks primarily to confidentiality and integrity of user sessions and data. Genealogy applications often store sensitive personal and familial information, which could be exposed or manipulated through this XSS flaw. In multi-user environments such as family history societies, research institutions, or community heritage projects prevalent in Europe, an attacker with valid credentials could exploit this vulnerability to hijack sessions of other users, steal personal data, or alter displayed information, undermining trust and data accuracy. Although the vulnerability does not allow unauthenticated remote exploitation, the potential for lateral movement within an organization or community platform exists. The impact on availability is limited but possible if UI manipulation disrupts normal application use. Given the moderate CVSS score and the nature of the application, the threat is significant for organizations relying on this software for sensitive genealogical data management.

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

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 18 Aug 2025, 17:18 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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