CVE-2025-40704
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/edition" petition, "name" parameter.
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 · high confidenceReflected XSS vulnerability in OpenAtlas v8.9.0 where the 'name' parameter in the '/insert/edition' POST endpoint fails to properly validate/sanitize user input. An attacker can inject malicious JavaScript that executes in an authenticated user's browser, allowing 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.
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Identify OpenAtlas versionLocate and inspect the OpenAtlas installation to determine the installed version number (typically found in version file, about page, or package metadata)Affected if Installed version is exactly 8.9.0 (Craws Openatlas)
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Verify /insert/edition endpoint existsConfirm the /insert/edition POST endpoint is present and accessible in the OpenAtlas web applicationAffected if The endpoint exists and responds to POST requests
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Confirm authentication is requiredDetermine whether the /insert/edition endpoint requires authentication (login session) to accessAffected if The endpoint is accessible to authenticated users (not publicly exposed without auth)
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Test name parameter for XSS vulnerabilitySubmit a benign XSS test payload (such as <script>alert(1)</script>) in the 'name' parameter to the /insert/edition endpoint while authenticated and observe if the payload is reflected unescaped in the responseAffected if The submitted name parameter value is reflected in the response without HTML encoding or is stored and displayed without sanitization
User is affected if OpenAtlas version 8.9.0 is installed and the /insert/edition endpoint handles the 'name' parameter without proper output encoding, allowing reflected XSS to execute in authenticated user browsers.
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 server-side input validation and output encoding for the 'name' parameter in the /insert/edition endpoint to prevent XSS execution.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-40704 — 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-2025-40704 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
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