CVE-2025-59525 Horilla has Improper Input Sanitization Leading to XSS and Admin Account Takeover

What is CVE-2025-59525?

CVE-2025-59525 is a high-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in horilla-opensource horilla, published on 24 Sep 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Horilla is a free and open source Human Resource Management System (HRMS). Prior to version 1.4.0, improper sanitization across the application allows XSS via uploaded SVG (and via allowed <embed>), which can be chained to execute JavaScript whenever users view impacted content (e.g., announcements). This can result in admin account takeover. This issue has been patched in version 1.4.0.

Weakness: CWE-79, CWE-434

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-59525?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Horilla Horilla.

How do I fix CVE-2025-59525?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-59525 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Escape output for the context it lands in and set a strict Content Security Policy. Upgrading the affected component is the real fix. More about Cross-site scripting.

Is CVE-2025-59525 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-59525 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in horilla-opensource horilla

• CVE-2025-59832 Horrila Stored XSS Vulnerability via Ticket Comment section Critical 9.9
• CVE-2026-24010 Horilla has HTML Injection Issue that, with Phishing, Leads to Account Takeover High 8.8
• CVE-2026-24038 Horilla HR has 2FA Bypass through its OTP Handling Logic High 8.1
• CVE-2025-59524 Horilla Stored XSS Vulnerability via File Upload in Reimbursement Panel High 7.7
• CVE-2025-48869 Horilla Unauthorized Access to Candidate Resume Files Due to Broken Access Control High 7.5

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-rp5m-vpqr-vpvp.