CVE-2025-40709
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/person/<ID>” 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 · high confidenceOpenAtlas v8.9.0 contains a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the /insert/person/<ID> endpoint where the 'name' and 'alias-0' POST parameters are not properly validated or sanitized before being stored and rendered, allowing injection of malicious JavaScript to steal session cookies from authenticated users.
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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Verify OpenAtlas versionLocate and check the installed OpenAtlas version (typically in application metadata, about page, or version file). Compare against the affected version 8.9.0.Affected if Installed version is exactly 8.9.0
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Identify /insert/person endpoint exposureCheck if the /insert/person/<ID> endpoint is accessible in the application. This is typically a web route for creating or inserting person records.Affected if The endpoint exists and is accessible to authenticated users
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Check for name parameter usageInspect the web application's form submissions or API calls that use the 'name' POST parameter when accessing /insert/person/<ID>. Verify if this parameter accepts user input without validation.Affected if The 'name' parameter accepts and stores raw user input without sanitization
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Check for alias-0 parameter usageInspect form submissions or API calls that use the 'alias-0' POST parameter at the /insert/person/<ID> endpoint. Verify if this parameter accepts user input without validation.Affected if The 'alias-0' parameter accepts and stores raw user input without sanitization
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Search for stored XSS payloadsQuery the application's database or inspect stored person records to identify any injected JavaScript payloads in the 'name' or 'alias' fields. Look for script tags, event handlers, or other XSS patterns.Affected if Malicious JavaScript code is found stored in the name or alias fields of any person record
A user is affected if they are running OpenAtlas version 8.9.0 and have the /insert/person/<ID> endpoint accessible with unvalidated 'name' or 'alias-0' parameters, or if malicious payloads are already stored in the 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 robust input validation and output encoding/escaping for the 'name' and 'alias-0' parameters at the /insert/person/<ID> endpoint to prevent XSS execution, and consider implementing Content-Security-Policy headers.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-40709 — 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-2025-40709 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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