CVE Alert: CVE-2025-9741 – code-projects – Human Resource Integrated System

Risk verdict

Urgent: a publicly disclosed, remote, unauthenticated injection flaw with an active exploit exists, enabling potential data exposure and lateral access.

Why this matters

Equally, HRIS contains personally identifiable information and payroll data; successful exploitation could lead to credential theft, data leakage, and compromise of adjacent systems. With no user interaction required, attackers can automate access attempts and widen impact across an organisation.

Most likely attack path

Attacker targets a web login component exposed to the internet, sending crafted input to trigger an injection. No privileges or user accounts are required, and successful exploitation can access or alter data with low preconditions, given network access and a vulnerable parameter. Scope is likely unchanged, so impact remains on confidentiality, integrity and availability at a component level.

Who is most exposed

Any organisation with an internet-facing HRIS, especially SMEs and hosted deployments. Systems that rely on web-based login portals or single-sign-on integrations without strong input validation are particularly at risk.

Detection ideas

• Look for unusual SQL error messages or database-layer failures in login attempts.
• Detect anomalous input strings in authentication requests (e.g., classic injection patterns).
• Monitor web logs for repeated payloads containing SQL keywords or tautologies.
• WAF/IDS alerts for SQL injection signatures on login endpoints.
• Spike in failed logins followed by unexpected data access patterns in the database.

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply vendor patch or upgrade to a fixed version; if unavailable, implement parameterised queries and strict input validation around the authentication path.
• Implement a web application firewall with SQL injection signatures and block anomalous login requests; restrict exposure (VPN or IP allowlists).
• Disable or isolate the vulnerable component if a rapid fix isn’t possible; enforce least privilege and rotate credentials.
• Initiate change-management with testing before deployment; perform targeted security testing of login functionality.
• If KEV true or EPSS ≥ 0.5, treat as priority 1. If not, maintain elevated monitoring and interim compensating controls.