Overview
We are focusing today on a significant vulnerability, CVE-2025-9943, that affects the Shibboleth Service Provider up to version 3.5.0. This vulnerability is particularly concerning as it allows an unauthenticated attacker to exploit an SQL injection flaw in the “ID” attribute of the SAML response, through which they could potentially extract arbitrary data from the database. This vulnerability makes all systems using the affected versions of the Shibboleth Service Provider subject to potential system compromise or data leakage, which underscores the critical importance of understanding and mitigating this issue.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-9943
Severity: Critical (CVSS Score: 9.1)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Shibboleth Service Provider | <= 3.5.0 How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability resides in the “ID” attribute of the SAML response when the replay cache of the Shibboleth Service Provider is configured to use an SQL database as storage service. Due to insufficient escaping of single quotes in the class SQLString, an attacker can exploit this issue via blind SQL injection. This means that the attacker can insert malicious SQL commands into the application query, which can lead to the extraction of arbitrary data from the database, if the database connection is configured to use the ODBC plugin.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This could be a sample HTTP request, shell command, or pseudocode.
POST /saml/endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/xml
<SAMLResponse>
<ID>' OR 'x'='x</ID>
...
</SAMLResponse>In the above example, the attacker is inserting a malicious payload `OR ‘x’=’x` into the “ID” field of the SAML response. This payload can turn any database query into a true statement, thus potentially bypassing any security measures and enabling the extraction of data.
Mitigation Guidance
The most effective mitigation against this vulnerability is to apply the vendor patch. If for some reason the patch cannot be applied immediately, measures such as deploying a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can be used as temporary mitigation. However, these are not long-term solutions and the patch should be applied as soon as possible to fully protect against this vulnerability.
