CVE-2025-68951VulnerabilityPublished 29 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-68951: thorsten phpMyFAQ · Cross-site Scripting

Affects thorsten phpMyFAQSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.4 Medium · fixed in 4.0.16 : update thorsten phpMyFAQ when convenient.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 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.
Patch: Available – fixed in 4.0.16

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 29 Dec 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

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubthorsten/phpMyFAQ`pkg:github/thorsten/phpMyFAQ`Other threats	Affected =4.0.14 =4.0.15	Fixed in–

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

AI-suggested

European organizations should promptly upgrade phpMyFAQ to version 4.0.16 or later, where the vulnerability is patched. Until the upgrade is applied, organizations can implement strict input validation and output encoding on user-supplied data, especially display names, to prevent HTML entity injection. Restricting registration capabilities or implementing CAPTCHA and email verification can reduce the risk of automated malicious registrations. Administrators should be cautious when viewing the user list and consider limiting access to this page to trusted personnel only. Employing Content Security Policy (CSP) headers can help mitigate the impact of XSS by restricting script execution sources. Regularly monitoring logs for suspicious user registrations or unusual admin page access patterns can help detect exploitation attempts. Finally, educating administrators about the risk and signs of XSS attacks will improve incident response readiness.

Description

phpMyFAQ is an open source FAQ web application. Versions 4.0.14 and 4.0.15 have a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that allows an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript in an administrator’s browser by registering a user whose display name contains HTML entities. When an administrator views the admin user list, the payload is decoded server-side and rendered without escaping, resulting in script execution in the admin context. Version 4.0.16 contains a patch for the issue.

Impact

For European organizations using phpMyFAQ versions 4.0.14 or 4.0.15, this vulnerability poses a moderate risk. An attacker could leverage this XSS flaw to execute malicious scripts in the context of an administrator’s browser, potentially leading to session hijacking, unauthorized actions, or data leakage. This could compromise the confidentiality and integrity of the FAQ system and possibly other connected internal resources if the admin’s session is hijacked. Organizations relying on phpMyFAQ for internal knowledge bases or customer support might face reputational damage and operational disruption if attackers exploit this vulnerability. However, the impact is somewhat limited by the need for an attacker to register a user and for an administrator to view the user list, which may reduce the likelihood of exploitation. Since no known exploits are reported in the wild, the immediate threat level is moderate but should not be underestimated, especially in environments with high-value administrative access or sensitive information stored in phpMyFAQ.

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

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 30 Dec 2025, 23:40 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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