Privilege escalation via loose hash comparison
Published May 21, 2025 · Updated Oct 13, 2025
Privilege escalation in OrangeHRM 5.7 allows remote authenticated users to gain elevated application privileges through password validation. The reported checkForOldHash path in UserService.php uses PHP loose equality when a specific MD5 value is stored. The supplier disputes exploitability because placing that value in the credential store already requires full privileges and it would not realistically occur otherwise.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in OrangeHRM 5.7 allows remote authenticated users to gain elevated application privileges through password validation. The reported checkForOldHash path in UserService.php uses PHP loose equality when a specific MD5 value is stored. The supplier disputes exploitability because placing that value in the credential store already requires full privileges and it would not realistically occur otherwise.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-44040
- Published
- May 21, 2025
- Updated
- Oct 13, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- CWE-269
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- admin
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 21, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 13, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo