How to Fix Path Traversal and SQL Injection Vulnerabilities in Mattermost Boards: CVE-2025-20051 and CVE-2025-24490?

Mattermost, a popular open-source collaboration platform, recently disclosed two security vulnerabilities affecting its Boards feature. These vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-20051 and CVE-2025-24490, could allow attackers to read arbitrary files and conduct SQL injection attacks, potentially leading to sensitive data disclosure. Security professionals need to understand these vulnerabilities and take immediate action to protect their Mattermost deployments.

This article aims to provide security professionals with a comprehensive understanding of these vulnerabilities, their potential impact, and step-by-step guidance on how to mitigate them. We will cover affected products, detection methods, patching procedures, and additional security measures to enhance the overall security of your Mattermost environment. This information is crucial for security professionals in DevSecOps, application security, product security, vulnerability management and assessment, penetration testing and red teams, security operations and engineering teams.

A Short Introduction to Mattermost Boards

Mattermost is an open-source, self-hosted collaboration platform often used by organizations seeking an alternative to proprietary solutions like Slack or Microsoft Teams. Mattermost Boards is a project management tool integrated within the Mattermost platform that allows users to organize tasks, projects, and workflows in a visual and collaborative manner. It offers features like Kanban boards, task tracking, and customizable views to enhance team productivity and project visibility. Given its role in managing sensitive project information, securing Mattermost Boards is paramount for maintaining data confidentiality and integrity.

Summary of the Vulnerabilities

* Description: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

* CVSS Score: 9.9 (Critical)

* CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

* Description: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')

* CVSS Score: 9.6 (Critical)

* CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

CVE-2025-20051 is a path traversal vulnerability that allows an attacker with low privileges to read arbitrary files on the system. This flaw occurs during board patching and duplication processes due to insufficient input validation. By manipulating a block during board duplication, an attacker can potentially access sensitive files.

CVE-2025-24490 is a SQL injection vulnerability that occurs when reordering board categories. The vulnerability stems from a failure to use prepared statements in SQL queries, potentially allowing attackers with low privileges to retrieve data from the database. This could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Both vulnerabilities affect Mattermost versions 10.4.x <= 10.4.1, 9.11.x <= 9.11.7, 10.3.x <= 10.3.2, and 10.2.x <= 10.2.2.

Impact of the Vulnerabilities

The impact of these vulnerabilities is significant. CVE-2025-20051 could lead to the disclosure of sensitive information such as configuration files, credentials, or other critical system data. An attacker could leverage this information to further compromise the system or gain unauthorized access to other resources.

CVE-2025-24490 could result in unauthorized data retrieval from the database, potentially exposing sensitive user data, internal communications, or other confidential information stored within Mattermost. The high confidentiality and integrity impact associated with these vulnerabilities highlights the potential for significant data breaches and system compromise.

Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could have severe consequences for organizations using affected Mattermost versions. It is essential to prioritize patch management and mitigation efforts to minimize the risk of exploitation. Given the low privilege requirements for exploitation, even internal users could potentially pose a threat. Therefore, a defense-in-depth strategy is crucial.

Products Affected by the Vulnerabilities

The following Mattermost versions are affected by both CVE-2025-20051 and CVE-2025-24490:

It is important to note that versions outside of these ranges are not explicitly listed as vulnerable in the advisory, however, it is still generally recommended to keep your Mattermost instance updated to the latest stable release for optimal security.

How to Check If Your Product is Vulnerable?

Identifying whether your Mattermost instance is vulnerable to CVE-2025-20051 and CVE-2025-24490 is crucial for taking appropriate action. Here are several methods to check for vulnerability:

1. Version Check:

2. File Access Attempts (CVE-2025-20051):

3. SQL Injection Attempts (CVE-2025-24490):

4. Web Application Firewall (WAF) Logs:

How to Fix the Vulnerabilities?

The primary remediation strategy for both CVE-2025-20051 and CVE-2025-24490 is to upgrade to a patched version of Mattermost.

1. Upgrade Mattermost:

2. Workarounds:

3. Additional Security Measures:

Note: If a specific patch is not yet released, or you are unable to upgrade immediately, monitor official Mattermost channels (e.g., security advisories, release notes) for any security updates or patches related to these vulnerabilities.

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