CVE-2025-23209
RCE in Craftcms Craft Cms 4.0.0 – 4.13.8
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-23209 is a high-severity Code Injection (CWE-94) vulnerability in Craftcms Craft Cms. Its CVSS base score is 8.0 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059); ranked in the top 10% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
Craft CMS versions 4 and 5 contain a remote code execution vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-23209 and assigned CWE-94. The flaw is present in unpatched installations where the application's security key has already been compromised, allowing code injection that can lead to full compromise of the affected system. It carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 8.0 reflecting network attack vector, high complexity, low privileges, required user interaction, changed scope, and high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
An attacker who has obtained the security key can exploit the issue remotely to execute arbitrary code on the Craft installation. The attack requires the key to already be exposed and succeeds against any unpatched Craft 4 or 5 instance that still uses the compromised key.
The official advisory and patches state that the vulnerability is fixed in Craft 5.5.8 and 4.13.8. Administrators unable to update immediately are advised to rotate their security keys and restrict access to them. The issue appears in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and its EPSS score rose from lower values to a peak of 0.1913, indicating emerging exploitation interest after disclosure.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-0208
Vulnerability Data
Craft is a flexible, user-friendly CMS for creating custom digital experiences on the web and beyond. This is an remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that affects Craft 4 and 5 installs where your security key has already been compromised. Anyone…
more
running an unpatched version of Craft with a compromised security key is affected. This vulnerability has been patched in Craft 5.5.8 and 4.13.8. Users who cannot update to a patched version, should rotate their security keys and ensure their privacy to help migitgate the issue.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 20 February 2025
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V1.3.1
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation finds code paths that accept and execute externally influenced strings.
Input validation directly stops untrusted data from being used to construct executable code without neutralization.
Least privilege limits the damage an injected code fragment can perform once executed.
Requiring documented secure development standards and tools enforces use of safe code-generation APIs and escaping.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
PR.PS-06's SDLC practices directly target injection flaws via secure coding and testing (mostly), yet as a single broad outcome it leaves many code-generation specifics unaddressed (partial).
PR.DS-10 protects runtime data confidentiality/integrity but has no bearing on neutralizing externally influenced input during code generation, so neither direction shows any preventive effect.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Banning unapproved code samples and unauthenticated web services, combined with secure-coding standards and SAST, prevents the dynamic generation or inclusion of attacker-supplied code.
Controls that restrict unauthorized or malicious code from being introduced via external networks or removable media limit opportunities for an attacker to inject and execute arbitrary code.