Cyber Posture

CVE-2025-21290

High

Published: 14 January 2025

Published
14 January 2025
Modified
24 January 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0131 80.0th percentile
Risk Priority 16 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-21290 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 20.0% 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).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.
Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

prevent

Flaw remediation directly addresses the vulnerability by applying the Microsoft patch for CVE-2025-21290 in MSMQ, eliminating the uncontrolled resource consumption issue.

prevent

Denial-of-service protection implements mechanisms like rate limiting and traffic shaping to prevent unauthenticated remote attackers from exhausting MSMQ resources.

prevent

Resource availability allocates and monitors dedicated resources for MSMQ to detect and mitigate uncontrolled consumption leading to denial of service.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

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.
Why these techniques?

The vulnerability is a remote unauthenticated DoS in MSMQ via uncontrolled resource consumption (CWE-400), directly enabling Endpoint Denial of Service through application/system exploitation.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) Denial of Service Vulnerability

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2025-21290 is a Denial of Service vulnerability in Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ). Published on 2025-01-14, it is associated with CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) and has 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), indicating high severity due to its potential for significant availability disruption.

An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability remotely over the network with low attack complexity and without requiring user interaction. Successful exploitation results in high-impact denial of service, potentially rendering the affected MSMQ service unavailable.

The Microsoft Security Response Center advisory provides details on mitigation and patches at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21290.

Details

CWE(s)

Affected Products

microsoft
windows 10 1507
≤ 10.0.10240.20890 · ≤ 10.0.10240.20890
microsoft
windows 10 1607
≤ 10.0.14393.7699 · ≤ 10.0.14393.7699
microsoft
windows 10 1809
≤ 10.0.17763.6775 · ≤ 10.0.17763.6775
microsoft
windows 10 21h2
≤ 10.0.19044.5371
microsoft
windows 10 22h2
≤ 10.0.19045.5371
microsoft
windows 11 22h2
≤ 10.0.22621.4751
microsoft
windows 11 23h2
≤ 10.0.22631.4751
microsoft
windows 11 24h2
≤ 10.0.26100.2894
microsoft
windows server 2008
all versions, r2
microsoft
windows server 2012
all versions, r2
+5 more product configuration(s) — see NVD for full list

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-21289Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1507
CVE-2025-21270Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1507
CVE-2025-21300Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1507
CVE-2025-21389Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1507
CVE-2025-21251Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1507
CVE-2025-21351Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21230Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1507
CVE-2025-21330Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1809
CVE-2025-21207Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1809
CVE-2025-21231Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1507

References