VulnerabilityPublished 7 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-61261: ckeditor5 · Cross-site Scripting

Affects ckeditor5Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.4 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.4Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 20% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
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: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
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: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 7 Nov 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

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubckeditor/ckeditor5`pkg:github/ckeditor/ckeditor5`Other threats	Affected =46.1.0	Fixed in–
npmangular`pkg:npm/angular`Other threats	Affected =18.0.0	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-61261, European organizations should prioritize the following actions: 1) Monitor official CKEditor and Angular security advisories and apply patches or updates as soon as they become available to address this vulnerability. 2) Implement rigorous input validation and output encoding on all user-supplied data to prevent malicious scripts from being reflected back to users. 3) Deploy Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict the execution of unauthorized scripts and reduce the impact of XSS attacks. 4) Educate users and staff about phishing and social engineering tactics that could be used to exploit this vulnerability, emphasizing caution when clicking on suspicious links. 5) Conduct regular security testing, including automated scanning and manual penetration testing focused on XSS vulnerabilities, to identify and remediate similar issues proactively. 6) Consider using web application firewalls (WAFs) with rules tailored to detect and block reflected XSS payloads targeting CKEditor and Angular components. 7) Review and harden application code to ensure that dynamic content rendering properly escapes or sanitizes inputs. These measures collectively reduce the attack surface and improve resilience against exploitation.

Description

CVE-2025-61261 is a reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting CKEditor v46.1.0 and Angular v18.0.0. This flaw allows attackers to inject malicious scripts that execute in the context of a user's browser when they interact with crafted payloads. The vulnerability requires user interaction but no authentication, and it can lead to limited confidentiality and integrity impacts without affecting availability. The CVSS score is 5.4 (medium severity), indicating moderate risk. No known exploits are currently reported in the wild.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-61261 can be significant, particularly for those operating public-facing web applications that incorporate CKEditor or Angular versions affected by this vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to theft of sensitive user data such as authentication tokens or personal information, unauthorized actions performed on behalf of users, and erosion of user trust. While the vulnerability does not directly affect system availability, the compromise of confidentiality and integrity can lead to regulatory compliance issues under GDPR, potential financial losses, and reputational damage. Organizations in sectors such as finance, healthcare, e-commerce, and government services are particularly at risk due to the sensitive nature of data handled and the regulatory environment in Europe. The requirement for user interaction means that social engineering or phishing could be used to lure victims into triggering the attack, increasing the risk in environments with less user security awareness. The lack of known exploits in the wild currently reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the threat, especially as attackers often develop exploits quickly after public disclosure.

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

Community reviews

Loading reviews…

Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 14 Nov 2025, 20:01 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats