CVE-2025-20382: Low-Severity Unvalidated Redirect in Splunk – Are You Affected?

Overview

This article provides a comprehensive overview of CVE-2025-20382, a low-severity unvalidated redirect vulnerability affecting Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud Platform. This vulnerability could allow a low-privileged user to potentially redirect other users to a malicious external site via a specially crafted dashboard URL. It’s crucial to understand the details of this vulnerability and take appropriate mitigation steps to protect your Splunk environment.

Technical Details

CVE-2025-20382 exists due to insufficient validation of URLs used in custom dashboard backgrounds within Splunk. Specifically, a low-privileged user without “admin” or “power” roles can create a views dashboard with a custom background image using the data:image/png;base64 protocol. By crafting a URL that includes a redirection attempt within the base64 encoded data, an attacker could potentially bypass Splunk’s external URL warning mechanism.

This vulnerability requires a social engineering component. The attacker must trick the victim into clicking the malicious link to initiate the redirect within their browser. The authenticated user should not be able to exploit the vulnerability at will.

Affected versions:

• Splunk Enterprise versions below 10.0.2, 9.4.6, 9.3.8, and 9.2.10
• Splunk Cloud Platform versions below 10.1.2507.10, 10.0.2503.8, and 9.3.2411.120

CVSS Analysis

The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score for CVE-2025-20382 is 3.5 (Low).

This score reflects the following factors:

• Attack Vector (AV): Network (N)
• Attack Complexity (AC): High (H)
• Privileges Required (PR): Low (L)
• User Interaction (UI): Required (R)
• Scope (S): Unchanged (U)
• Confidentiality Impact (C): None (N)
• Integrity Impact (I): Low (L)
• Availability Impact (A): None (N)

The low severity is primarily due to the need for user interaction and the limited impact on integrity. The attacker cannot directly compromise the Splunk system; they can only redirect the user’s browser.

Possible Impact

While the CVSS score is low, successful exploitation of CVE-2025-20382 could still lead to:

• Phishing Attacks: Users could be redirected to fake login pages or other malicious websites designed to steal credentials or install malware.
• Reputation Damage: If users are successfully phished, it could damage the reputation of the organization using the vulnerable Splunk instance.

The impact is largely dependent on the attacker’s ability to craft a convincing phishing attack.

Mitigation and Patch Steps

The primary mitigation for CVE-2025-20382 is to upgrade to a patched version of Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform. Splunk has released fixes in the following versions:

• Splunk Enterprise: 10.0.2, 9.4.6, 9.3.8, and 9.2.10 and later
• Splunk Cloud Platform: 10.1.2507.10, 10.0.2503.8, and 9.3.2411.120 and later

Follow these steps to mitigate the vulnerability:

1. Upgrade Splunk: Schedule an upgrade to the latest stable version of Splunk Enterprise or Cloud Platform as soon as possible.
2. User Awareness: Educate users about phishing attacks and the importance of verifying URLs before clicking on links.
3. Monitor Dashboard Usage: Monitor for unusual dashboard activity that might indicate an attempted exploitation.

References

Splunk Advisory SVD-2025-1201