CVE-2025-45065: Employee Record Management System SQLi

CVE-2025-45065 Overview

A SQL injection vulnerability has been identified in the Employee Record Management System in PHP and MySQL v1. The vulnerability exists in the loginerms.php endpoint, which fails to properly sanitize user-supplied input before incorporating it into SQL queries. This allows unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary SQL commands against the underlying database, potentially leading to complete compromise of the application and its data.

Critical Impact

Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this SQL injection vulnerability to bypass authentication, extract sensitive employee records, modify or delete database contents, and potentially gain complete control over the underlying database server.

Affected Products

• Employee Record Management System in PHP and MySQL v1

Discovery Timeline

• July 7, 2025 - CVE-2025-45065 published to NVD
• July 8, 2025 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-45065

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-89 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command), commonly known as SQL Injection. The loginerms.php endpoint accepts user input—likely username and password fields—that is directly concatenated into SQL queries without proper sanitization or parameterization.

When user-controlled data is passed directly to SQL queries, attackers can manipulate the query structure by injecting malicious SQL syntax. This allows them to alter the intended query logic, bypass authentication mechanisms, or execute additional SQL statements. The network-accessible nature of web applications makes this vulnerability particularly dangerous, as exploitation requires no prior authentication and can be performed remotely by any attacker with network access to the application.

Root Cause

The root cause of this vulnerability is the absence of secure coding practices in the login functionality. The application constructs SQL queries using string concatenation with user-supplied input rather than using parameterized queries (prepared statements). This fundamental flaw allows attackers to escape the intended data context and inject arbitrary SQL commands into the query structure.

Attack Vector

This SQL injection vulnerability is exploitable over the network without authentication. An attacker can craft malicious HTTP requests to the loginerms.php endpoint containing SQL injection payloads in the login form fields. Common attack techniques include:

The attacker targets the login form by submitting crafted input values that contain SQL syntax designed to manipulate the authentication query. For example, injecting a condition that always evaluates to true can bypass password verification entirely. More sophisticated attacks may use UNION-based injection to extract data from other database tables, blind SQL injection techniques to enumerate database contents character by character, or stacked queries to execute multiple SQL statements including data modification or administrative commands. For detailed technical analysis, refer to the Medium CVE-2025-45065 Analysis.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-45065

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual login attempts with SQL metacharacters (single quotes, double dashes, semicolons) in username or password fields
• Database error messages appearing in application logs or HTTP responses
• Unexpected database queries containing UNION SELECT, OR 1=1, or similar SQL injection patterns
• Anomalous database access patterns such as bulk data extraction or unauthorized table access

Detection Strategies

• Deploy web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block common SQL injection patterns targeting the loginerms.php endpoint
• Implement database activity monitoring to alert on unusual query patterns, error rates, or unauthorized data access
• Review web server access logs for suspicious requests containing SQL injection signatures
• Enable detailed database query logging to identify injection attempts and potential successful exploits

Monitoring Recommendations

• Configure real-time alerting for database errors related to malformed SQL syntax
• Monitor for authentication anomalies such as successful logins without corresponding valid credential submissions
• Track data extraction patterns that may indicate successful exploitation and data exfiltration
• Implement intrusion detection system (IDS) rules specific to SQL injection attack vectors

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-45065

Immediate Actions Required

• Take the Employee Record Management System offline if it contains sensitive data and cannot be immediately patched
• Implement a web application firewall with SQL injection protection as an interim defense layer
• Review database logs for evidence of prior exploitation and assess potential data breach
• Restrict network access to the application to trusted IP ranges if possible

Patch Information

No official vendor patch has been identified in the available CVE data. Organizations using this application should contact the vendor directly for remediation guidance or consider migrating to a more secure employee management solution. Additional technical details may be available in the vulnerability documentation.

Workarounds

• Deploy a web application firewall (WAF) configured to block SQL injection attempts as an immediate protective measure
• Implement input validation at the application level to reject requests containing SQL metacharacters
• If source code access is available, replace vulnerable query construction with parameterized queries using PDO or mysqli prepared statements
• Add database user permission restrictions to limit the potential impact of successful SQL injection attacks
• Consider network segmentation to isolate the vulnerable application from sensitive internal resources

# Example WAF rule pattern for ModSecurity to block SQL injection attempts
SecRule ARGS "@detectSQLi" "id:1001,phase:2,deny,status:403,msg:'SQL Injection Detected'"

# Restrict database user privileges (MySQL example)
REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES ON erms_database.* FROM 'webapp_user'@'localhost';
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE ON erms_database.employees TO 'webapp_user'@'localhost';