Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-13878

Published
21 January 2026
Modified
15 July 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.082 94th percentile
Risk Priority 66 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-13878 is a high-severity Reachable Assertion (CWE-617) vulnerability in Isc (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked in the top 6% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

CVE-2025-13878 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in the BIND 9 DNS server software, where malformed BRID or HHIT records can cause the `named` daemon to terminate unexpectedly. This issue affects BIND 9 versions 9.18.40 through 9.18.43, 9.20.13 through 9.20.17, 9.21.12 through 9.21.16, 9.18.40-S1 through 9.18.43-S1, and 9.20.13-S1 through 9.20.17-S1. It is rated with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) and is associated with CWE-617.

An unauthenticated remote attacker with network access to a vulnerable BIND server can exploit this vulnerability by sending DNS queries containing specially crafted malformed BRID or HHIT records. Successful exploitation results in the termination of the `named` process, causing a denial of service that disrupts DNS resolution services until the server is restarted.

ISC has released patched versions to mitigate this vulnerability, including BIND 9.18.44, 9.20.18, and 9.21.17, available for download from their site. Further details on the issue and mitigation steps are provided in the ISC knowledge base article at https://kb.isc.org/docs/cve-2025-13878 and the announcement on the oss-security mailing list at http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/21/3.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Malformed BRID/HHIT records can cause `named` to terminate unexpectedly. This issue affects BIND 9 versions 9.18.40 through 9.18.43, 9.20.13 through 9.20.17, 9.21.12 through 9.21.16, 9.18.40-S1 through 9.18.43-S1, and 9.20.13-S1 through 9.20.17-S1.

CWE(s)
CWE-617CWE-1286

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-56783Shared CWE-617
CVE-2025-8804Shared CWE-617
CVE-2024-39509Shared CWE-617
CVE-2025-59029Shared CWE-617
CVE-2026-22990Shared CWE-617
CVE-2023-32841Shared CWE-617
CVE-2025-7485Shared CWE-617
CVE-2026-13204Shared CWE-617
CVE-2023-37012Shared CWE-617
CVE-2025-48020Shared CWE-617

Affected Assets

Isc
—
inferred from references and description; NVD did not file a CPE for this CVE

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.1.1
  • V1.4.2
  • V2.1.1
  • V2.2.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation good match

Developer testing and evaluation finds reachable assertions during development.

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match

SI-10 requires validation of information inputs for correctness, directly stopping syntactic validation failures from being introduced or exploitable.

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

Security engineering principles discourage use of assertions for handling untrusted input.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent unsafe assertions from being coded in reachable paths.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime monitoring of software can detect assertion-triggered crashes as adverse events.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability identification processes can discover and record reachable-assertion flaws before deployment.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing in development can detect reachable assertions before release, reducing the likelihood of exploitation.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates defensive coding and input validation that prevent reachable assertions from being triggered by untrusted data.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
prevents

Application security requirements can specify that assertions must not be reachable from attacker-controlled inputs.

A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles partial match
prevents

Secure architecture principles discourage the use of assertions for runtime error handling that an attacker could exploit.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly ban the use of assert() or equivalent statements that can be triggered by external input.

References