CVE-2025-21289
Published: 14 January 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-21289 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 1507. 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 19.7% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) and SC-6 (Resource Availability).
Deeper analysis
Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) contains a denial-of-service vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-21289. The flaw is rated 7.5 under CVSS 3.1 with a vector of AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H and is associated with CWE-400. It affects the MSMQ component in supported Windows versions and allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to trigger service disruption without user interaction.
An attacker with network reachability to an MSMQ endpoint can send crafted messages that exhaust resources, resulting in high-impact loss of availability while leaving confidentiality and integrity intact. No privileges or user interaction are required, making the attack surface broad for any exposed MSMQ instance.
Microsoft’s advisory at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21289 provides official guidance on available patches and configuration steps to mitigate the issue.
The associated EPSS score rose from a low baseline to a recorded peak of 0.0332 before settling at the current value of 0.0133, indicating that exploitation interest increased after public disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-2354
Vulnerability details
Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) Denial of Service Vulnerability
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
The CVE describes a remote unauthenticated DoS via resource exhaustion in MSMQ, directly enabling T1499.004 (Application or System Exploitation) to crash or deny service to the target application.
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Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly protects against denial-of-service events by limiting the effects of uncontrolled resource consumption attacks like this MSMQ vulnerability.
Remediates the specific MSMQ flaw through timely application of vendor security updates as referenced in Microsoft's update guide.
Ensures resource availability by protecting against exhaustion and denial-of-service disruptions caused by this CVE.