PhpSpreadsheet vulnerable to SSRF when reading and displaying a processed HTML document in the browser
Published 25 Aug 2025 · Updated 29 Aug 2025
Affected packages
- Affected
- <1.30.0
- Fixed in
- 1.30.0
composer require phpoffice/phpspreadsheet:^1.30.0- Affected
- >=2.0.0 <2.1.12
- Fixed in
- 2.1.12
composer require phpoffice/phpspreadsheet:^2.1.12- Affected
- >=2.2.0 <2.4.0
- Fixed in
- 2.4.0
composer require phpoffice/phpspreadsheet:^2.4.0- Affected
- >=3.0.0 <3.10.0
- Fixed in
- 3.10.0
composer require phpoffice/phpspreadsheet:^3.10.0- Affected
- >=4.0.0 <5.0.0
- Fixed in
- 5.0.0
composer require phpoffice/phpspreadsheet:^5.0.0Details
Product: PhpSpreadsheet
Version: 3.8.0
CWE-ID: CWE-918: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
CVSS vector v.3.1: 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N)
CVSS vector v.4.0: 8.7 (AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N)
Description: SSRF occurs when a processed HTML document is read and displayed in the browser
Impact: Server-Side Request Forgery
Vulnerable component: the PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Worksheet\Drawing class, setPath method
Exploitation conditions: getting a string from the user that is passed to the HTML reader
Mitigation: improved processing of the $path variable of the setPath method of the PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Worksheet\Drawing class is needed
Researcher: Aleksey Solovev (Positive Technologies)
Research
The researcher discovered zero-day vulnerability Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) (in the setPath method of the PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Worksheet\Drawing class) in Phpspreadsheet.
The latest version (3.8.0) of the phpoffice/phpspreadsheet library was installed. Below are the details of the installation:
*Listing 1. Installing the phpoffice/phpspreadsheet library*
$ composer require phpoffice/phpspreadsheet --prefer-source
The code that processes the HTML string with further rendering and displaying the result in the browser. *Listing 2. Executable file index.php using the PhpSpreadsheet library*
<?php require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php'; $inputFileType = 'Html'; $reader = \PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\IOFactory::createReader($inputFileType); $inputFileName = './doc/file.html'; $spreadsheet = $reader->load($inputFileName); $writer = new \PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Html($spreadsheet); print($writer->generateHTMLAll());
Also, the ./doc/file.html has the following content: the img tag with the src attribute, which contains the value http:// 127.0.0.1:1337
*Listing 3. The ./doc/file.html file*
<table>
<tr>
<img src="http://127.0.0.1:1337">
</tr>
</table>The vulnerability lies in the setPath method of the PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Worksheet\Drawing class.
Figure 1. The PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Worksheet\Drawing class, setPath method.
!fig1
Figure 2 below demonstrates the SSRF vulnerability exploitation.
!fig2
Figure 2. Demonstration of the SSRF vulnerability exploitation
Also, there is code on line 154 that could potentially be used by an attacker to perform unsafe deserialization via the phar archive and the file_exists method.
Figure 3. Opportunity to perform phar deserialization !fig3
_____________________________________________
Please, assign all credits to: Aleksey Solovev (Positive Technologies)
Credit
Aleksey Solovev (Positive Technologies)
Is GHSA-rx7m-68vc-ppxh in any of your client repos?
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References
- Linkgithub.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/security/advisories/GHSA-rx7m-68vc-ppxh
- Advisorynvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-54370
- Linkgithub.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/commit/334a67797ace574d1d37c0992ffe283b7415471a
- Linkgithub.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/commit/4050f14521d70634c3320b170236574a6106eb39
- Linkgithub.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/commit/81a0de2261f698404587a6421a5c6eb263c40b31
- Linkgithub.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/commit/ac4befd2f7ccc21a59daef606a02a3d1828ade09
- Linkgithub.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/commit/c2cd0e64392438e4c6af082796eb65c1d629a266
- Linkgithub.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/phpoffice/phpspreadsheet/CVE-2025-54370.yaml
- Packagegithub.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet
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