CVE-2025-40703
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/group" petition, "name" and "alias-0” 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 confidenceReflected XSS vulnerability in OpenAtlas v8.9.0 allows remote attackers to inject malicious scripts via the 'name' and 'alias-0' parameters in the '/insert/group' POST endpoint. Insufficient input validation permits script execution in authenticated users' browsers, enabling session cookie theft.
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.
-
Identify installed OpenAtlas versionCheck the application version by logging into the admin interface and navigating to the 'About' or 'System Info' page, or by inspecting the response headers or version file if accessible via the web serverAffected if Version is exactly 8.9.0
-
Confirm the /insert/group endpoint existsSend a POST request to /insert/group (or access it through the web UI) and verify the endpoint responds. This may require valid authentication credentialsAffected if The endpoint is accessible and responds to requests
-
Verify the name and alias-0 parameters are acceptedSubmit a test POST to /insert/group with the 'name' and 'alias-0' parameters present, using a benign test value, and observe if the application accepts and reflects these inputs back in the responseAffected if The endpoint accepts and reflects the 'name' and 'alias-0' parameters without proper sanitization
-
Check input validation behaviorSubmit a POST request to /insert/group with HTML/script tags in the 'name' or 'alias-0' parameter (e.g., <script>alert(1)</script>) and inspect whether the application reflects the raw input in the response or stores it unescapedAffected if The application reflects user-supplied input from these parameters without HTML encoding in the response
You are affected if you are running OpenAtlas version 8.9.0 and the /insert/group endpoint is accessible, as the application does not properly validate or encode the 'name' and 'alias-0' parameters.
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 robust server-side input validation and context-aware output encoding for all user-supplied input in the '/insert/group' endpoint to prevent XSS execution.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,120.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-40703 — 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-2025-40703 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
Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.
A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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