Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-21158

Memory Safety in Adobe Indesign ≤ 19.5.2

Published
11 February 2025
Modified
03 March 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0031 24th percentile
Risk Priority 56 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-21158 is a high-severity Wrap or Wraparound (CWE-191) vulnerability in Adobe Indesign. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 24th 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 SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — 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-2025-21158 is an Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound) vulnerability, classified under CWE-191, affecting Adobe InDesign Desktop versions ID20.0, ID19.5.1, and earlier. This flaw could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. The vulnerability received a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) and was published on 2025-02-11.

Exploitation requires local access and user interaction, specifically tricking a victim into opening a malicious file with a vulnerable InDesign installation. No special privileges are needed (PR:N), and the attack complexity is low (AC:L). Successful exploitation allows an attacker to achieve high-impact confidentiality, integrity, and availability violations (C:H/I:H/A:H) within the user's context, without changing scope.

Adobe's security bulletin APSB25-01, available at https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/indesign/apsb25-01.html, provides details on mitigation and available patches for affected InDesign versions.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

InDesign Desktop versions ID20.0, ID19.5.1 and earlier are affected by an Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound) vulnerability that could result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that…

more

a victim must open a malicious file.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
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.
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-47136Same product: Adobe Indesign
CVE-2025-43546Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-53954Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-61835Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-52985Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-49514Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2024-53955Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-21122Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43555Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-21156Same product: Apple Macos

Affected Assets

adobe
indesign
20.0 · ≤ 19.5.2

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and static/dynamic analysis directly find integer underflow defects before code is released.

Security engineering principles require use of safe arithmetic constructs or language features that structurally eliminate integer underflow during subtraction.

Input validation can reject or sanitize values that would cause a subtraction to underflow the representable range.

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 full match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent integer underflow defects via input validation, bounds checking, and static analysis.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and code analysis can surface underflow flaws after they are introduced.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Routine patching can remediate known underflow bugs once they are discovered in deployed software.

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.

finds

Security testing in development catches integer underflow defects before release.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and arithmetic checks that prevent integer underflow.

prevents

Application security requirements include bounds checking and safe arithmetic to avoid underflow conditions.

prevents

Secure architecture principles require defensive coding patterns that mitigate integer wraparound risks.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly prescribe safe integer handling and overflow/underflow prevention.

References