Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-1403 is a high-severity Deserialization of Untrusted Data (CWE-502) vulnerability in Ibm Qiskit. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 49th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); 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-2025-1403 affects Qiskit SDK versions 0.45.0 through 1.2.4, enabling a remote attacker to trigger a denial of service via a maliciously crafted QPY file. The file includes a malformed symengine serialization stream that causes a segmentation fault in the symengine library. Published on 2025-02-21, this vulnerability is rated 8.6 on the CVSS v3.1 scale (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H) and maps to CWE-502 (Deserialization of Untrusted Data).
A remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability over the network with low attack complexity, requiring no privileges, authentication, or user interaction. By convincing a target to process the malicious QPY file, the attacker induces a crash in the affected Qiskit application, resulting in high availability impact due to the changed scope.
IBM provides details on this issue in their security advisory at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7183868.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-4473
Vulnerability Data
Qiskit SDK 0.45.0 through 1.2.4 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service using a maliciously crafted QPY file containing a malformed symengine serialization stream which can cause a segfault within the symengine library.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation can uncover deserialization flaws before deployment.
Input validation directly stops deserialization of untrusted data by ensuring inputs are valid before processing.
Engineering principles such as safe deserialization and input sanitization structurally prevent the weakness from being introduced.
Integrity verification tools can detect malformed or tampered serialized data after the fact.
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-02 addresses only post-deployment updates/patching and cannot prevent introduction of unsafe deserialization code, yet it can remediate some instances when the flaw exists in outdated libraries or components.
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.
Security testing includes validation of deserialization routines and the use of untrusted data, reducing the likelihood that unsafe object reconstruction will be deployed.
Requiring vetted libraries, regular updates and SAST before release reduces the likelihood that deserialization logic will accept and act on attacker-controlled serialized objects.
Regular scanning of third-party libraries and timely patching reduce the likelihood that unsafe deserialization vulnerabilities remain active.
Mandatory malware scanning of data received over networks or storage media intercepts malicious serialized payloads before they are deserialized by the target application.