Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities

PublicCMS Under Attack: SSRF Vulnerability (CVE-2025-65836) Exposed!

Overview

This article provides a detailed analysis of CVE-2025-65836, a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability discovered in PublicCMS V5.202506.b. The vulnerability resides within the chat interface of the SimpleAiAdminController. This flaw allows attackers to potentially manipulate the server into making unintended requests, potentially leading to information disclosure, internal service access, or other malicious activities.

Technical Details

The SSRF vulnerability exists in the SimpleAiAdminController‘s chat interface. The lack of proper input validation and sanitization on user-supplied data used in constructing server-side requests allows an attacker to inject arbitrary URLs. By crafting malicious input, an attacker can force the PublicCMS server to make HTTP requests to attacker-controlled or internal resources. The specific vulnerable code section is described within the provided GitHub links. Further investigation reveals that the vulnerability lies in how the application processes user-provided input when interacting with external services or APIs through this controller.

CVSS Analysis

Currently, no CVSS score is assigned to CVE-2025-65836. However, given the nature of SSRF vulnerabilities, the potential impact could be significant. A proper CVSS score would depend on factors like exploitability and impact details, and requires a deeper evaluation of the vulnerability.

Possible Impact

Successful exploitation of this SSRF vulnerability could lead to several critical consequences:

  • Information Disclosure: Attackers could access sensitive data from internal systems or services.
  • Internal Service Access: Attackers could interact with internal services that are not exposed to the public internet.
  • Denial of Service (DoS): By making numerous or resource-intensive requests, attackers could potentially overwhelm the PublicCMS server or internal services.
  • Remote Code Execution (potentially): In certain scenarios, an SSRF vulnerability could be leveraged to achieve remote code execution if internal services have exploitable vulnerabilities.

Mitigation and Patch Steps

To mitigate the risks associated with CVE-2025-65836, the following steps are recommended:

  • Upgrade PublicCMS: Check the official PublicCMS repository for updated versions that address this vulnerability. Applying the latest security patches is crucial.
  • Input Validation and Sanitization: Implement strict input validation and sanitization on all user-supplied data used in the SimpleAiAdminController. Specifically, carefully validate any URLs or hostnames before making server-side requests.
  • Network Segmentation: Segment your network to restrict access from the PublicCMS server to only the necessary internal resources.
  • Web Application Firewall (WAF): Deploy a WAF with rules to detect and block SSRF attempts.

References

SSRF Vulnerability Detail
PublicCMS Official Repository
PublicCMS Issues Page

Cybersecurity specialist and founder of Gowri Shankar Infosec - a professional blog dedicated to sharing actionable insights on cybersecurity, data protection, server administration, and compliance frameworks including SOC 2, PCI DSS, and GDPR.

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