CVE-2025-15422: Phome Empirecms RCE Vulnerability

CVE-2025-15422 Overview

A protection mechanism failure vulnerability has been discovered in EmpireSoft EmpireCMS versions up to 8.0. This issue affects the egetip function within the file e/class/connect.php of the IP Address Handler component. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to manipulate IP address handling, effectively bypassing security protections implemented by the application.

Critical Impact

Remote attackers can exploit this protection mechanism failure to bypass IP-based security controls in EmpireCMS, potentially enabling further attacks such as IP spoofing, authentication bypass, or circumvention of rate limiting and access control mechanisms.

Affected Products

• EmpireCMS versions up to 8.0
• phome EmpireCMS (all affected versions)
• IP Address Handler component (e/class/connect.php)

Discovery Timeline

• 2026-01-02 - CVE-2025-15422 published to NVD
• 2026-01-07 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-15422

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-693 (Protection Mechanism Failure), indicating that a security mechanism within EmpireCMS fails to provide adequate protection against certain attack scenarios. The egetip function in the IP Address Handler component does not properly validate or sanitize IP address inputs, allowing attackers to manipulate how the application determines client IP addresses.

The network-accessible nature of this vulnerability means attackers can exploit it remotely without requiring authentication or user interaction. While the vulnerability does not directly compromise confidentiality or availability, it enables integrity violations by allowing manipulation of IP-based security controls.

The vendor (EmpireSoft) was contacted about this disclosure but did not respond, leaving affected users without an official patch or guidance.

Root Cause

The root cause lies in the improper implementation of the egetip function within e/class/connect.php. This function is responsible for extracting and validating client IP addresses but fails to adequately verify the authenticity of IP address information. The function likely trusts user-controllable HTTP headers (such as X-Forwarded-For, X-Real-IP, or similar headers) without proper validation, allowing attackers to inject arbitrary IP addresses.

Attack Vector

The attack is initiated remotely over the network. An attacker can craft HTTP requests with manipulated headers to inject false IP address information. This bypasses IP-based security mechanisms such as:

• IP-based access control lists (ACLs)
• Geographic restrictions
• Rate limiting mechanisms
• Logging and audit controls
• Ban/blocklist enforcement

The manipulation requires no authentication and can be performed with minimal complexity, making it accessible to attackers with basic technical knowledge.

The vulnerability mechanism involves sending specially crafted HTTP requests with spoofed IP headers to the EmpireCMS application. Technical details and proof of concept information are available in the HXLabs PoC Document.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-15422

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected or suspicious IP addresses appearing in application logs that don't match expected traffic patterns
• Multiple requests from different geographic locations but with similar session characteristics
• HTTP requests containing multiple or unusual IP-related headers (X-Forwarded-For, X-Real-IP, Client-IP)
• Bypass of IP-based access restrictions by unauthorized users

Detection Strategies

• Monitor HTTP headers for anomalous or multiple IP address headers in incoming requests
• Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect header manipulation attempts
• Review access logs for IP addresses that conflict with other session metadata
• Deploy network monitoring to correlate HTTP-level IP information with actual source IPs

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable detailed logging for the e/class/connect.php file and the egetip function
• Configure alerts for requests containing multiple IP-identifying headers
• Implement baseline analysis to detect unusual patterns in IP address distribution
• Cross-reference application-layer IP addresses with network-layer source addresses

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-15422

Immediate Actions Required

• Restrict access to the EmpireCMS admin panel and sensitive functions via network-level controls
• Implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with rules to validate and normalize IP headers
• Consider placing EmpireCMS behind a trusted reverse proxy that overwrites client IP headers
• Review and harden IP-based security mechanisms to not solely rely on application-level IP detection

Patch Information

No official patch is available at this time. The vendor (EmpireSoft) was contacted about this vulnerability but did not respond. Users should monitor the VulDB entry and official EmpireCMS channels for potential future updates.

Additional technical resources are available at the HXLabs Sharing Resource.

Workarounds

• Deploy a reverse proxy (such as nginx or HAProxy) that sets a trusted X-Forwarded-For header and configure EmpireCMS to only accept IP information from this trusted source
• Modify the egetip function in e/class/connect.php to validate IP headers against trusted proxy sources only
• Implement network-level IP filtering using firewall rules rather than relying on application-layer IP detection
• Consider migrating to a maintained CMS solution if the vendor continues to be unresponsive

# Example nginx configuration to normalize IP headers
# Place in nginx server block before proxying to EmpireCMS

# Clear any existing X-Forwarded-For headers from untrusted sources
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;

# Optional: If behind a trusted load balancer
# set_real_ip_from 10.0.0.0/8;
# real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For;