CVE-2025-1389 in Orca HCM
Summary
by MITRE • 02/17/2025
Orca HCM from Learning Digital has a SQL Injection vulnerability, allowing attackers with regular privileges to inject arbitrary SQL commands to read, modify, and delete database contents.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/17/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-1389 affects Orca HCM version 1.2.0 and earlier, a human capital management system developed by Learning Digital. This critical security flaw resides within the application's database interaction mechanisms, specifically in how user input is processed and executed against backend database systems. The vulnerability manifests as a SQL injection weakness that can be exploited by authenticated users with regular privileges, eliminating the need for administrative access to initiate attacks. This presents a significant risk to organizations relying on the system for sensitive employee data management and HR operations. The flaw operates by failing to properly sanitize or escape user-supplied input before incorporating it into SQL query constructs, creating an avenue for malicious command injection.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability follows standard SQL injection attack patterns where an attacker can manipulate input fields to execute unauthorized database operations. The system's failure to implement proper input validation and parameterized query execution creates opportunities for attackers to craft malicious SQL payloads that bypass authentication mechanisms and directly interact with the underlying database. This allows for unauthorized data retrieval, modification, and deletion operations, potentially compromising the integrity and confidentiality of human resources information. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple data access as it can enable attackers to escalate privileges within the database context, manipulate employee records, and potentially access sensitive personal information including salary details, performance reviews, and other confidential HR data. The attack surface is particularly concerning given that the vulnerability requires only regular user privileges, making it accessible to employees who may not have elevated access rights.
The operational impact of CVE-2025-1389 represents a severe threat to organizational security posture and regulatory compliance. Organizations using this system face potential data breaches that could expose sensitive employee information, leading to legal consequences under data protection regulations such as gdpr and ccpa. The vulnerability's ability to facilitate data modification and deletion operations creates risks for business continuity and data integrity, potentially disrupting HR processes and employee services. Additionally, the attack could result in unauthorized access to system administrative functions if the database user account has elevated privileges, potentially leading to complete system compromise. The vulnerability also creates opportunities for attackers to establish persistent access points within the organization's infrastructure, particularly if the system lacks proper logging and monitoring capabilities for database activities. The impact extends to operational costs associated with incident response, system remediation, and potential regulatory fines. Organizations may also face reputational damage from employee data exposure and loss of trust in their HR management systems. According to CWE standards, this vulnerability maps to CWE-89 SQL Injection, which is classified as a high-severity weakness in the CWE top 25 most dangerous software weaknesses. The attack pattern aligns with MITRE ATT&CK techniques such as T1071.004 Application Layer Protocol and T1566 Phishing, as attackers may need to gain initial access through social engineering before exploiting this vulnerability. The vulnerability also relates to T1046 Network Service Scanning and T1590 Reconnaissance, as attackers typically perform reconnaissance activities to identify and map vulnerable systems before exploitation.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including patching the system to version 1.2.1 or later, which contains the necessary security fixes. The implementation of proper input validation and parameterized queries should be enforced throughout the application codebase to prevent future occurrences of similar vulnerabilities. Database access controls must be reviewed and hardened to limit the privileges of database user accounts used by the application, ensuring that accounts have minimal required permissions. Network segmentation and monitoring solutions should be deployed to detect anomalous database access patterns and unauthorized data manipulation attempts. Regular security assessments and penetration testing should be conducted to identify additional vulnerabilities within the system. The implementation of web application firewalls and database activity monitoring tools can provide additional layers of protection against exploitation attempts. Organizations should also establish incident response procedures specifically tailored to address SQL injection attacks and ensure that all system administrators are trained on proper security practices and vulnerability management processes. These measures align with industry best practices outlined in the owasp top ten and nist cybersecurity framework, ensuring comprehensive protection against this and similar threats.