CVE-2025-6301: Notice Board System XSS Vulnerability

CVE-2025-6301 Overview

CVE-2025-6301 is a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in PHPGurukul Notice Board System 1.0. The flaw resides in the Add Notice component, specifically in /admin/manage-notices.php. Attackers can inject malicious script payloads through the Title or Description parameters. The injected script executes in the browser of any user who later views the affected notice.

The vulnerability requires authenticated administrator access to reach the vulnerable form. Exploitation can be initiated remotely over the network, and public disclosure of the exploit technique has occurred through VulDB submission #595373.

Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers can inject persistent JavaScript payloads that execute in administrator browser sessions, enabling session hijacking, credential theft, and unauthorized actions within the notice board application.

Affected Products

PHPGurukul Notice Board System 1.0
CPE: cpe:2.3:a:anujk305:notice_board_system:1.0
Vendor: anujk305 / PHPGurukul

Discovery Timeline

2025-06-20 - CVE-2025-6301 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-6301

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2025-6301 is classified as Cross-Site Scripting under CWE-79. The vulnerability exists in the administrative interface at /admin/manage-notices.php, which handles notice creation. The application accepts Title and Description input fields without applying sufficient output encoding or input sanitization.

When an administrator submits a notice, the raw values are stored in the backend database. Any subsequent rendering of that notice reflects the stored content directly into HTML output. The result is a stored (persistent) XSS condition affecting every user who loads the notice management view.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing contextual output encoding in the PHP template that renders notice fields. The application places user-supplied text directly inside HTML markup without HTML entity encoding. There is no allow-list validation on the input side either, so <script> tags and event handlers such as onerror pass through unaltered.

Attack Vector

An authenticated administrator submits a notice containing a JavaScript payload in the Title or Description field. The payload persists in the database and executes whenever any authenticated user renders the notice list. Because the vulnerable page is inside the admin panel, all victim sessions are privileged. This allows an attacker to exfiltrate session cookies, perform CSRF-like actions using the victim's session, or pivot deeper into the application.

See the VulDB entry #313301 for the disclosed proof-of-concept details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-6301

Indicators of Compromise

Notice records containing HTML tags such as <script>, <img onerror=, <svg onload=, or javascript: URIs in the Title or Description fields.
Outbound HTTP requests from administrator browsers to unknown domains shortly after loading /admin/manage-notices.php.
Unexpected admin session cookie usage from unfamiliar IP addresses or user agents.

Detection Strategies

Review database records for the notices table and search for HTML or JavaScript syntax within stored text fields.
Enable web server access logging on /admin/manage-notices.php and inspect POST bodies for script-like payloads.
Deploy a Content Security Policy (CSP) in report-only mode to surface unexpected inline script execution on admin pages.

Monitoring Recommendations

Monitor administrator authentication events and correlate them with anomalous browser-originated outbound traffic.
Alert on new notice submissions that contain angle brackets, event handler attributes, or URL-encoded script fragments.
Track integrity of the manage-notices.php file to identify unauthorized modifications to the vulnerable form handler.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-6301

Immediate Actions Required

Restrict access to /admin/ paths to trusted IP ranges or place the admin interface behind a VPN.
Audit existing notice content and remove any records containing HTML or JavaScript payloads.
Rotate administrator credentials and invalidate active admin sessions if suspicious notices are found.
Deploy a web application firewall (WAF) rule to block script tags and common XSS patterns targeting manage-notices.php.

Patch Information

No official vendor patch has been published in the referenced advisories. Consult the PHPGurukul project site for updates. Until a fix is released, apply the workarounds below and consider replacing the application if administrative use continues in production.

Workarounds

Modify the notice rendering template to apply htmlspecialchars($value, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8') on all output of Title and Description.
Add server-side input validation that rejects notice submissions containing <, >, or javascript: sequences.
Enforce a strict Content Security Policy that disallows inline scripts and untrusted external script sources on all admin pages.
Require re-authentication for privileged actions to reduce the value of hijacked sessions.

bash

# Example Apache configuration to enforce CSP and X-XSS-Protection on the admin path
<Location "/admin/">
    Header always set Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'"
    Header always set X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff"
    Header always set X-Frame-Options "DENY"
    Header always set Referrer-Policy "no-referrer"
</Location>