CVE-2025-40702
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedCross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in OpenAtlas v8.9.0 from the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage (ACDH-CH), due to inadequate validation of user input when a POST request is sent. The vulnerabilities could allow a remote user to send specially crafted queries to an authenticated user and steal their session cookie details, via the "/insert/file" petition, "creator" and "license_holder" parameters.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceStored XSS vulnerability in OpenAtlas v8.9.0 allows remote attackers to inject malicious scripts via the 'creator' and 'license_holder' parameters in the '/insert/file' endpoint. When an authenticated user views the injected content, the attacker's script executes in the victim's browser, enabling session cookie theft and potential session hijacking.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 8.9.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify OpenAtlas installation versionLocate the OpenAtlas installation and check the version number in the software (typically found in package.json, version file, or admin interface about page)Affected if Installed version is exactly 8.9.0
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Verify /insert/file endpoint existsConfirm the /insert/file endpoint is present and accessible in the OpenAtlas web applicationAffected if Endpoint exists and accepts requests from authenticated users
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Check if file upload feature is enabledInspect the application configuration to determine if the file upload/insertion feature is active for authenticated usersAffected if File upload functionality is enabled and accessible
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Examine stored creator and license_holder dataQuery the database or inspect stored records in the file-related tables for the 'creator' and 'license_holder' fields, looking for unsanitized HTML or script tagsAffected if Records contain unescaped HTML or JavaScript in these fields that could execute in a browser
A user is affected if they are running OpenAtlas version 8.9.0 with the file insertion feature enabled and have not yet sanitized the creator/license_holder field contents in their database.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataImplement proper input validation and output encoding for the 'creator' and 'license_holder' parameters. Use context-appropriate sanitization (e.g., HTML encoding for displayed content) and consider implementing Content Security Policy headers to mitigate XSS impacts.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-40702 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-40702 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data