CVE-2025-15438
Published: 02 January 2026
Summary
CVE-2025-15438 is a medium-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Pluxml Pluxml. Its CVSS base score is 5.1 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 23.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-15438 is a deserialization vulnerability affecting PluXml versions up to 5.8.22. The issue resides in the FileCookieJar::__destruct function within the core/admin/medias.php file of the Media Management Module. Manipulation of the File argument triggers unsafe deserialization, as classified under CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation) and CWE-502 (Deserialization of Untrusted Data).
The vulnerability is exploitable remotely over the network (AV:N) with low attack complexity (AC:L), but requires high privileges (PR:H) and no user interaction (UI:N). Exploitation results in low impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:I:A:L/L/L) within unchanged scope (S:U), yielding a CVSS v3.1 base score of 4.7.
The vendor was informed early and announced a fix in the upcoming version 5.8.23, with a patch ready. Advisories from VulDB indicate the exploit has been publicly disclosed and may be utilized, with details available at references including https://note-hxlab.wetolink.com/share/9SJUnaDcJuqz, https://vuldb.com/?ctiid.339383, https://vuldb.com/?id.339383, and https://vuldb.com/?submit.713989.
An exploit is publicly available, increasing the risk for unpatched PluXml 5.8.22 instances despite the moderate CVSS score.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-0694
Vulnerability details
A vulnerability was determined in PluXml up to 5.8.22. Affected is the function FileCookieJar::__destruct of the file core/admin/medias.php of the component Media Management Module. Executing a manipulation of the argument File can lead to deserialization. The attack can be launched…
more
remotely. The exploit has been publicly disclosed and may be utilized. The vendor was informed early about this issue and announced that "[w]e fix this issue in the next version 5.8.23". A patch for it is ready.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Remote deserialization of untrusted data (CWE-502) in a public-facing web app admin module directly enables RCE exploitation.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly enforces validation of the File argument before FileCookieJar::__destruct performs deserialization, blocking the CWE-20/CWE-502 flaw.
Requires cryptographic or integrity verification of serialized data supplied to medias.php, preventing acceptance of attacker-controlled payloads.
Restricts access to the Media Management Module to only those accounts that truly require it, reducing the high-privilege attack surface described in the CVE.