CVE Alert: CVE-2025-9701 – SourceCodester – Simple Cafe Billing System

Risk verdict

High risk: remote, unauthenticated SQL injection with a publicly disclosed PoC warrants prompt attention.

Why this matters

Attackers can retrieve or alter sensitive financial data and records, with potential impact on payment history, receipts and customer data. The lack of user interaction and remote reach raise the likelihood of automated scanning and mass exploitation, creating regulatory, reputational and financial exposure for affected organisations.

Most likely attack path

An attacker sends crafted requests to the vulnerable endpoint, injecting via an ID parameter to bypass normal queries. No authentication is required and no user interaction is needed, enabling automated exploitation to read or modify data within the same security scope. The impact is limited to confidentiality, with potential for data integrity and availability impact through heavy queries or data manipulation.

Who is most exposed

Small to mid-sized organisations hosting PHP-based billing or invoicing tools on public or shared hosting environments are particularly at risk, especially where web-facing inputs are not properly parameterised.

Detection ideas

• Sudden spikes in long-running queries or error responses tied to the ID parameter.
• Logs showing unusual or tautological SQL patterns in HTTP GET parameters.
• Increased 500/SQL-related errors for receipt or billing endpoints.
• IDS/IPS alerts for anomalous input patterns targeting SQL syntax.
• Recurrent, automated probing from external IPs hitting the vulnerable parameter.

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply vendor-provided patch or upgrade to a fixed release; verify integrity in a test environment.
• Enforce parameterised queries and prepared statements; avoid dynamic SQL building.
• Harden database credentials: least privilege, separate app/db accounts, rotate credentials.
• Implement input validation and a web application firewall to block common SQLi patterns.
• Change-management: schedule patching window, monitor post-deployment logs for anomalies. If KEV or EPSS signals were present, escalate to priority 1; otherwise treat as high-priority tactile risk.