Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-24356

DoS in Fastd Project Fastd ≤ 23.0

Published
27 January 2025
Modified
27 August 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 6.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0067 49th percentile
Risk Priority 42 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2025-24356 is a medium-severity Amplification (CWE-405) vulnerability in Fastd Project Fastd. Its CVSS base score is 6.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Network Denial of Service (T1498); 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 SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) and SC-6 (Resource Availability) — 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-2025-24356 affects fastd, a VPN daemon that tunnels IP packets and Ethernet frames over UDP. The vulnerability stems from the "fast reconnect" feature, which responds to a data packet from an unknown IP address/port combination by assuming a peer has changed addresses and sending a handshake packet to reestablish the connection. A minimal 1-byte UDP packet containing only the fastd packet type header triggers a much larger ~150-byte UDP payload handshake response, resulting in an amplification factor of roughly 12-13 when including IPv4 and UDP headers. Versions of fastd prior to v23 are vulnerable.

Attackers can exploit this remotely over the network with no privileges or user interaction required by sending spoofed data packets to internet-exposed fastd instances. The targeted fastd server will reflect amplified UDP traffic to the spoofed source IP, enabling Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that leverage the amplification for volumetric flooding.

The vulnerability is addressed in fastd v23 through multiple commits on the project's GitHub repository, including changes to prevent the amplification response. Security practitioners should upgrade to v23 or later to mitigate the issue.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

fastd is a VPN daemon which tunnels IP packets and Ethernet frames over UDP. When receiving a data packet from an unknown IP address/port combination, fastd will assume that one of its connected peers has moved to a new address…

more

and initiate a reconnect by sending a handshake packet. This "fast reconnect" avoids having to wait for a session timeout (up to ~90s) until a new connection is established. Even a 1-byte UDP packet just containing the fastd packet type header can trigger a much larger handshake packet (~150 bytes of UDP payload). Including IPv4 and UDP headers, the resulting amplification factor is roughly 12-13. By sending data packets with a spoofed source address to fastd instances reachable on the internet, this amplification of UDP traffic might be used to facilitate a Distributed Denial of Service attack. This vulnerability is fixed in v23.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1498 Network Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Network Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of targeted resources to users.
T1499.002 Service Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target the different network services provided by systems to conduct a denial of service (DoS).
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
T1498.002 Reflection Amplification Impact
Adversaries may attempt to cause a denial of service (DoS) by reflecting a high-volume of network traffic to a target.
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.
T1499.001 OS Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may launch a denial of service (DoS) attack targeting an endpoint's operating system (OS).
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

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CVE-2025-31987Shared CWE-405
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Affected Assets

fastd project
fastd
≤ 23.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 6 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

—

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SC-5 directly requires mechanisms to limit the effects of asymmetric resource exhaustion attacks such as amplification DoS.

SC-6 enforces resource quotas and priority allocation that reduce the impact of unauthenticated or low-effort resource requests.

Least-functionality disables unnecessary services or features that could be leveraged for amplification.

SC-7 boundary controls can filter or rate-limit traffic patterns that enable amplification without equivalent client work.

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.IR-03 mostly match
prevents

Resilience mechanisms such as rate limiting and load balancing directly constrain asymmetric resource use.

PR.IR-04 mostly match
prevents

Capacity planning and monitoring maintain availability headroom against amplification attacks.

DE.CM-01 partial match
prevents

Network monitoring detects amplification traffic patterns but does not itself limit asymmetric consumption.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime resource monitoring can surface excessive consumption yet does not enforce authorization or work proofs.

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.

mitigates

Stress-testing and demand-reduction tactics (e.g., bandwidth throttling) blunt amplification vectors that would otherwise let an attacker multiply resource consumption through a single request.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
  • V-248553 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-405
  • V-248552 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-405
Oracle Linux 9 (2 rules)
  • V-271709 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-405
  • V-271710 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-405
RHEL 8 (2 rules)
  • V-230244 RHEL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-405
  • V-244525 RHEL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-405

References