CVE-2025-53690
Published: 03 September 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-53690 is a critical-severity Deserialization of Untrusted Data (CWE-502) vulnerability in Sitecore Experience Commerce. Its CVSS base score is 9.0 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 9.9% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-53690 is a deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability, assigned CWE-502, that permits code injection. It affects Sitecore Experience Manager (XM) and Experience Platform (XP) through version 9.0. The flaw carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.0 with a network attack vector, high complexity, no required privileges or user interaction, and changed scope, resulting in full confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can supply malicious serialized data, most likely through ASP.NET ViewState, to trigger arbitrary code execution on the affected Sitecore instance. Successful exploitation grants the attacker the ability to run code in the context of the application, potentially leading to full server compromise.
Sitecore has published remediation guidance in KB1003865. The vulnerability appears in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, confirming real-world exploitation. Its EPSS score rose from lower values after disclosure to a peak of 0.1007 on 2026-03-03 before receding, indicating a period of increased exploitation interest.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-26629
Vulnerability details
Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in Sitecore Experience Manager (XM), Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) allows Code Injection.This issue affects Experience Manager (XM): through 9.0; Experience Platform (XP): through 9.0.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 04 September 2025
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Deserialization vulnerability enables unauthenticated RCE on public-facing Sitecore via crafted ViewState (T1190), with embedded payloads (T1027.009), reconnaissance (T1082, T1083, T1016, T1057), HTML smuggling and exfiltration over C2 (T1027.006, T1041), and local data staging (T1074.001) as observed in exploitation.
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Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Timely patching of the deserialization flaw as per Sitecore KB1003865 and CISA KEV directly eliminates the vulnerability enabling code injection.
Validates untrusted data inputs prior to deserialization to block malicious payloads that lead to remote code execution.
Implements memory protections such as DEP and ASLR to mitigate unauthorized code execution resulting from successful deserialization exploits.