Overview
The cyber world is witnessing a significant increase in the number of vulnerabilities that have the potential to compromise the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of organizational data. One such critical vulnerability has been recently discovered in the Human Resource Management System version 1.0, labeled as CVE-2025-40682. This vulnerability is of particular concern to businesses and organizations that utilize the HR Management System for their operations as it allows an attacker to manipulate databases through SQL injection via the “city” and “state” parameters in the /controller/ccity.php endpoint.
Due to its high severity score and potential impact on businesses, CVE-2025-40682 demands immediate attention and rectification to prevent potential system compromise or data leakage.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-40682
Severity: Critical (CVSS: 9.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise and potential data leakage
Affected Products
Escape the Surveillance Era
Most apps won’t tell you the truth.
They’re part of the problem.
Phone numbers. Emails. Profiles. Logs.
It’s all fuel for surveillance.
Ameeba Chat gives you a way out.
- • No phone number
- • No email
- • No personal info
- • Anonymous aliases
- • End-to-end encrypted
Chat without a trace.
Product | Affected Versions
Human Resource Management System | Version 1.0
How the Exploit Works
The exploit takes advantage of the lack of proper input validation for the “city” and “state” parameters in the /controller/ccity.php endpoint. An attacker can input malicious SQL code into these parameters, which the system then executes. This allows the attacker to interact directly with the database, enabling them to retrieve, create, update, and delete database entries.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This could be a sample HTTP request:
POST /controller/ccity.php HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
city=NewYork';DROP TABLE Employees;--&state=NYIn the above example, the attacker uses the SQL Injection attack to delete the “Employees” table from the database. The semicolon (;) is used to end the original SQL statement, and the ‘–‘ symbol indicates the start of a comment, effectively ignoring the rest of the actual query.
Recommended Mitigation
The most effective mitigation measure is to apply the vendor’s patch. If the patch is not available, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation. However, these should be seen as stop-gap measures, and the patch should be applied as soon as it is available to ensure long-term security.