{"id":86044,"date":"2025-12-15T07:20:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T07:20:16","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T06:00:00","slug":"cve-2025-61597-stored-xss-vulnerability-in-emlog-leading-to-potential-admin-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-61597-stored-xss-vulnerability-in-emlog-leading-to-potential-admin-takeover\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-61597: Stored XSS vulnerability in Emlog leading to potential admin takeover<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Emlog, an open-source website building system, suffers from a significant security flaw in versions 2.5.21 and below. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-61597, allows for stored cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks through HTML template injection, which could potentially enable a full admin account takeover. Given the popularity of Emlog as a website building tool, this vulnerability poses a serious threat to many organizations and individual users.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-61597<br \/>\nSeverity: High (7.6)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Network<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: Low<br \/>\nUser Interaction: Required<br \/>\nImpact: System compromise, data leakage, and potential admin account takeover<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-1705747108\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 700px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 8px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 40px; height: 40px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    A new way to communicate\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 12px;\">\r\n    Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 16px;\">\r\n    Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\r\n    <li>\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Ameeba Chat authenticates access<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Aliases and categories<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Secure notes for sensitive information<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\r\n    Private communication, rethought.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Download Ameeba Chat<\/a>\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Learn More<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>Emlog | 2.5.21 and below<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In affected versions of Emlog, the mail template settings accept and store HTML input without proper sanitization. An attacker can inject malicious JavaScript code into these settings. When an admin visits the settings page, the stored JavaScript code is executed, potentially leading to session or token theft and subsequently, admin account takeover.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-2071368160\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Given the nature of this vulnerability, an attacker could exploit it with a simple POST request, as shown here:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">POST \/emlog\/settings\/mail_template HTTP\/1.1\nHost: target.example.com\nContent-Type: application\/json\n{ &quot;mail_template&quot;: &quot;&lt;script&gt;malicious_javascript_here&lt;\/script&gt;&quot; }<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>The &#8220;malicious_javascript_here&#8221; would be replaced with the attacker&#8217;s JavaScript code, which could be designed to steal session cookies, tokens, or perform other malicious actions when executed by the admin&#8217;s browser.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mitigation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Users of Emlog are strongly advised to update to version 2.5.22 or later, where this issue has been resolved. If immediate patching is not possible, implementing a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability can serve as a temporary mitigation strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview Emlog, an open-source website building system, suffers from a significant security flaw in versions 2.5.21 and below. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-61597, allows for stored cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks through HTML template injection, which could potentially enable a full admin account takeover. Given the popularity of Emlog as a website building tool, this vulnerability [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"vendor":[],"product":[],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-86044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86044"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=86044"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=86044"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=86044"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=86044"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=86044"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=86044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}