CVE-2025-48941
Mybb ≤ 1.8.39
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:NSummary
CVE-2025-48941 is a medium-severity Exposure of Sensitive Information Through Metadata (CWE-1230) vulnerability in Mybb Mybb. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data from Local System (T1005); ranked at the 22th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) and AC-16 (Security and Privacy Attributes) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-16667
Vulnerability Data
MyBB is free and open source forum software. Prior to version 1.8.39, the search component does not validate permissions correctly, which allows attackers to determine the existence of hidden (draft, unapproved, or soft-deleted) threads containing specified text in the title.…
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The visibility state (`mybb_threads.visible` integer column) of threads is not validated in internal search queries, whose result is used to output a general success or failure of the search. While MyBB validates permissions when displaying the final search results, a search operation that internally produces at least one result outputs a redirect response (as a HTTP redirect, or a success message page with delayed redirect, depending on configuration). On the other hand, a search operation that internally produces no results outputs a corresponding message in the response without a redirect. This allows a user to determine whether threads matching title search parameters exist, including draft threads (`visible` with a value of `-2`), soft-deleted threads (`visible` with a value of `-1`), and unapproved threads (`visible` with a value of `0`); in addition to displaying generally visible threads (`visible` with a value of `1`). This vulnerability does not affect other layers of permissions. In order to exploit the vulnerability, the user must have access to the search functionality, and general access to forums containing the thread(s). The vulnerability does not expose the message content of posts. MyBB 1.8.39 resolves this issue.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 1 hardening rule · 1 OS baseline
V3.4.2V12.1.5V13.3.2V14.2.4
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Information flow enforcement can be configured to treat metadata as protected information and block its unauthorized release.
Associating and enforcing security/privacy attributes on objects directly governs what metadata may be exposed.
Requiring security attributes to accompany transmitted data prevents sensitive values from leaking through metadata channels.
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.
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.
Classification helps identify metadata that may need protection, but does not directly limit its exposure.
Labelling can flag sensitive metadata, yet does not enforce technical controls to prevent its disclosure.
Transfer policies can require stripping or protecting metadata, but coverage is indirect.
Access-control rules can be extended to metadata objects, though the control is not metadata-specific.
Data-masking techniques can obscure sensitive metadata values, providing partial mitigation.
DLP solutions can detect and block metadata leakage, yet are not designed solely for this weakness.