CVE-2026-25156
January 30, 2026
HotCRP is conference review software. HotCRP versions from October 2025 through January 2026 delivered documents of all types with inline Content-Disposition, causing them to be rendered in the user’s browser rather than downloaded. (The intended behavior was for only "text/plain", "application/pdf", "image/gif", "image/jpeg", and "image/png" to be delivered inline, though adding "save=0" to the document URL could request inline delivery for any document.) This made users who clicked a document link vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks. An uploaded HTML or SVG document would run in the viewer’s browser with access to their HotCRP credentials, and Javascript in that document could eventually make arbitrary calls to HotCRP’s API. Malicious documents could be uploaded to submission fields with “file upload” or “attachment” type, or as attachments to comments. PDF upload fields were not vulnerable. A search of documents uploaded to hotcrp.com found no evidence of exploitation. The vulnerability was introduced in commit aa20ef288828b04550950cf67c831af8a525f508 (11 October 2025), present in development versions and v3.2, and fixed in commit 8933e86c9f384b356dc4c6e9e2814dee1074b323 and v3.2.1. Additionally, c3d88a7e18d52119c65df31c2cc994edd2beccc5 and v3.2.1 remove support for "save=0".
Affected Packages
https://github.com/kohler/hotcrp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=v2.0b1 <v3.2.1Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v3.2.1Related Resources (4)
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Contact UsCVSS v4
Base Score:
8.5
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
PASSIVE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
HIGH
Vulnerable System Integrity
HIGH
Vulnerable System Availability
NONE
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
7.3
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
NONE
Weakness Type (CWE)
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
EPSS
Base Score:
0.03