CVE-2025-8386VulnerabilityPublished 14 Nov 2025Updated 17 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-8386: AVEVA Application Server · CWE-80

Affects AVEVA Application ServerSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.9 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.9Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 6% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

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

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
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: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
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 14 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 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
AVEVA Application Server	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should implement the following specific mitigations: 1) Restrict and tightly control access to the 'aaConfigTools' privilege, ensuring only trusted and necessary personnel have this level of access. 2) Monitor and audit configuration-time activities within the AVEVA Application Server IDE component to detect anomalous modifications to help files or configuration objects. 3) Employ web application firewalls (WAFs) with rules tailored to detect and block XSS payloads targeting the Application Server’s configuration interfaces. 4) Educate users with configuration privileges about the risks of XSS and enforce strict input validation and sanitization policies within the development and configuration processes. 5) Segregate configuration environments from production run-time environments to limit the impact of any compromise. 6) Stay informed about AVEVA’s security advisories and apply patches promptly once available. 7) Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users with elevated privileges to reduce the risk of credential compromise. 8) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on the configuration interfaces to identify and remediate similar vulnerabilities proactively.

Description

The vulnerability, if exploited, could allow an authenticated miscreant (with privilege of "aaConfigTools") to tamper with App Objects' help files and persist a cross-site scripting (XSS) injection that when executed by a victim user, can result in horizontal or vertical escalation of privileges. The vulnerability can only be exploited during config-time operations within the IDE component of Application Server. Run-time components and operations are not affected.

Impact

For European organizations, especially those in industrial automation, manufacturing, energy, and critical infrastructure sectors that utilize AVEVA Application Server, this vulnerability poses a risk of unauthorized privilege escalation through persistent XSS attacks. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to gain access to sensitive configuration data, manipulate system settings, or perform unauthorized actions within the configuration environment, potentially leading to operational disruptions or further compromise. Although the vulnerability is limited to configuration-time operations and requires authenticated access with elevated privileges, insider threats or compromised accounts could exploit it to expand their control. The horizontal and vertical privilege escalation capabilities increase the risk of broader access within the organization’s control systems. Given the strategic importance of industrial control systems in Europe’s energy and manufacturing sectors, exploitation could have cascading effects on operational continuity and safety.

CWE-80Improper Neutralization of Script-Related HTML Tags in a Web Page (Basic XSS) (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighOWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special characters such as "<", ">", and "&" that could be interpreted as web-scripting elements when they are sent to a downstream component that processes web pages.
Implementation
Carefully check each input parameter against a rigorous positive specification (allowlist) defining the specific characters and format allowed. All input should be neutralized, not just parameters that the user is supposed to specify, but all data in the request, including hidden fields, cookies, headers, the URL…
Implementation · Output Encoding
Use and specify an output encoding that can be handled by the downstream component that is reading the output. Common encodings include ISO-8859-1, UTF-7, and UTF-8.
Implementation
With Struts, write all data from form beans with the bean's filter attribute set to true.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
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)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Targeting Non-Script Elements (opens in a new tab)
PHP Remote File Inclusion (opens in a new tab)
XSS Through HTTP Query Strings (opens in a new tab)
XSS Through HTTP Headers (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 22 Nov 2025, 00:41 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-80

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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