CVE-2025-48868: Horilla

High severity, CVSS 7.2. EPSS: 2.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Horilla is a free and open source Human Resource Management System (HRMS). An authenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability exists in Horilla 1.3.0 due to the unsafe use of Python’s eval() function on a user-controlled query parameter in the project_bulk_archive view. This allows privileged users (e.g., administrators) to execute arbitrary system commands on the server. While having Django’s DEBUG=True makes exploitation visibly easier by returning command output in the HTTP response, this is not required. The vulnerability can still be exploited in DEBUG=False mode by using blind payloads such as a reverse shell, leading to full remote code execution. This issue has been patched in version 1.3.1.

Affected products

• Horilla Horilla: version 1.3 only

Published 2025-09-24. Last modified 2026-09-26.