VulnerabilityPublished 21 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-57768: Alanaktion phproject · Cross-site Scripting

Affects Alanaktion phprojectSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.9 Medium · fixed in 1.8.3 : update Alanaktion phproject when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

6.9Medium

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

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 34% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.8.3

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: None
Subsequent system confidentiality: Low
Subsequent system integrity: Low
Subsequent system availability: None

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

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, 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: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system 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 Subsequent System.
Subsequent system 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 to the Subsequent System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 21 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 phproject version 1.8.3 or later, where the vulnerability is fixed.
If upgrading is not immediately possible, implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block malicious payloads targeting the planned_hours parameter, focusing on script tags and suspicious input patterns.
Employ input validation and output encoding at the application level to ensure that all user-supplied data, especially in the Planned Hours field, is properly sanitized and HTML-encoded before rendering.
Conduct a thorough audit of existing project entries to identify and remove any malicious scripts that may have been injected prior to patching.
Educate users and administrators about the risks of XSS and encourage vigilance when interacting with project management tools.
Monitor logs and network traffic for unusual POST requests to /issues/new/ that may indicate exploitation attempts.
Consider implementing Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict the execution of unauthorized scripts in browsers accessing phproject instances.

Description

Phproject is a high performance full-featured project management system. From 1.8.0 to before 1.8.3, a Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability exists in the Planned Hours field when creating a new project. When sending a POST request to /issues/new/, the value provided in the Planned Hours field is included in the server response without any HTML encoding or sanitization. Because of this, an attacker can craft a malicious payload such as <script>alert(1)</script> and include it in the planned_hours parameter. The server reflects the input directly in the HTML of the project creation page, causing the browser to interpret and execute it. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.8.3.

Impact

For European organizations using phproject versions between 1.8.0 and 1.8.2, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to the confidentiality and integrity of their web applications. An attacker exploiting this XSS flaw could execute arbitrary JavaScript in the context of the victim's browser, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, unauthorized actions on behalf of users, or distribution of malware. Since phproject is a project management tool, compromised accounts could expose sensitive project data, internal communications, and planning information, which could have operational and reputational consequences. The stored nature of the XSS increases the risk as malicious scripts persist and affect multiple users. Although the vulnerability does not directly impact availability, the indirect effects of compromised user accounts and data leakage can disrupt business processes. European organizations with public-facing or internally accessible phproject instances are particularly at risk, especially if they have not applied the patch or implemented input sanitization controls. The lack of required authentication for exploitation increases the threat surface, allowing external attackers to target vulnerable installations remotely.

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

github.com/Alanaktion/phproject/security/advisories/GHSA-mhhg-qx37-g369 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 21 Aug 2025, 18:03 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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