Privilege escalation in Orangehrm

CVE-2025-44040

An issue in OrangeHRM v.5.7 allows an attacker to escalate privileges via UserService.php and the checkForOldHash function. Authentication decisions may be made via PHP loose-equality comparisons if a specific MD5 value is present in the credential store. NOTE: this is disputed by the Supplier because an adversary has no way to place the specific MD5 value into the credential store (unless they already have full privileges) and because the specific MD5 value would not realistically be present otherwise.

Vulnerability class: Privilege Escalation

EPSS: 0.004 (33.1th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.2 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Affected products

  • Orangehrm — versions 5.7
  • N/a — versions n/a

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-44040?
CVE-2025-44040 is a high-severity vulnerability in Orangehrm, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 7.2/10. Published 2025-05-21.
How severe is CVE-2025-44040?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.2 out of 10.