Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-21628

Critical

Published: 09 January 2025

Published
09 January 2025
Modified
29 October 2025
KEV Added
—
Patch
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CVSS Score v3.1 9.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0067 71.9th percentile
Risk Priority 19 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-21628 is a critical-severity SQL Injection (CWE-89) vulnerability in Chatwoot Chatwoot. Its CVSS base score is 9.1 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 28.1% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 RA-5 (Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation).

Deeper analysis

CVE-2025-21628 is a SQL injection vulnerability (CWE-89) in Chatwoot, an open-source customer engagement suite. Versions prior to 3.16.0 are affected, specifically the conversation and contact filters endpoints. These endpoints fail to sanitize the query_operator input received from the frontend or API, enabling attackers to inject arbitrary SQL by appending a tautological WHERE clause to the filter query. The vulnerability was published on 2025-01-09 and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.1 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:L).

Any authenticated actor with low privileges can exploit this issue remotely over the network, requiring low complexity and no user interaction. Exploitation allows execution of arbitrary SQL queries within the filter context, resulting in scope-changed impacts: high confidentiality loss (e.g., data exfiltration), low integrity modification, and low availability disruption.

Chatwoot patched the vulnerability in version 3.16.0. Mitigation details are available in the security advisory at https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot/security/advisories/GHSA-g8f9-hh83-rcq9 and the fixing commit at https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot/commit/b34dac7bbe3c910186083b680e51aad5ea60b44b.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Chatwoot is a customer engagement suite. Prior to 3.16.0, conversation and contact filters endpoints did not sanitize the input of query_operator passed from the frontend or the API. This provided any actor who is authenticated, an attack vector to run…

more

arbitrary SQL within the filter query by adding a tautological WHERE clause. This issue is patched with v3.16.0.

CWE(s)
CWE-89

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

SQL injection in public-facing web/API endpoints (Chatwoot filters) directly enables T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application for remote authenticated access and arbitrary query execution.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-39334Shared CWE-89
CVE-2024-13488Shared CWE-89
CVE-2026-20002Shared CWE-89
CVE-2025-1446Shared CWE-89
CVE-2025-22699Shared CWE-89
CVE-2026-36232Shared CWE-89
CVE-2026-31871Shared CWE-89
CVE-2026-33078Shared CWE-89
CVE-2026-46359Shared CWE-89
CVE-2025-22691Shared CWE-89

Affected Assets

chatwoot
chatwoot
2.16.1 — 3.16.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match
prevent

Directly mandates validation and sanitization of inputs like query_operator in conversation and contact filter endpoints to block SQL injection via tautological WHERE clauses.

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match
prevent

Requires identification, reporting, and timely patching of flaws like this SQL injection vulnerability addressed in Chatwoot v3.16.0.

RA-5 Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning good match
prevent

Provides vulnerability scanning to detect SQL injection flaws in endpoints handling unsanitized query_operator inputs prior to exploitation.

References