CVE-2025-44040
Published: 21 May 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-44040 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Orangehrm Orangehrm. Its CVSS base score is 7.2 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 44.3% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-16059
Vulnerability details
An issue in OrangeHRM v.5.7 allows an attacker to escalate privileges via UserService.php and the checkForOldHash function. Authentication decisions may be made via PHP loose-equality comparisons if a specific MD5 value is present in the credential store. NOTE: this is…
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disputed by the Supplier because an adversary has no way to place the specific MD5 value into the credential store (unless they already have full privileges) and because the specific MD5 value would not realistically be present otherwise.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
The CVE describes a privilege escalation vulnerability in OrangeHRM via flawed authentication logic in UserService.php using PHP loose-equality comparisons on a specific MD5 hash, enabling exploitation for privilege escalation.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Policy addresses roles, responsibilities, and privilege management to prevent improper privilege assignments.
Access supervision ensures privileges are assigned and managed without improper escalation or retention.
Assigning group/role memberships and access authorizations (privileges) while reviewing accounts addresses improper privilege management.
Enforces proper privilege management by requiring all decisions through the verified reference monitor.
By mandating division of duties across roles, the control enforces proper privilege management and prevents a single entity from controlling an entire sensitive process.
Implements core proper privilege management by restricting to only required rights.
Policy requires training on privilege management and least privilege, making it harder to exploit improper privilege management weaknesses.
Training covers proper privilege management practices, making incorrect privilege assignments less likely.