Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-48768

Apache Nuttx 10.0.0 – 12.10.0

Published
01 January 2026
Modified
06 January 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0077 52th percentile
Risk Priority 51 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-48768 is a medium-severity Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference (CWE-763) vulnerability in Apache Nuttx. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 48% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; 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-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference vulnerability was discovered in fs/inode/fs_inoderemove code of the Apache NuttX RTOS that allowed root filesystem inode removal leading to a debug assert trigger (that is disabled by default), NULL pointer dereference (handled differently depending…

more

on the target architecture), or in general, a Denial of Service. This issue affects Apache NuttX RTOS: from 10.0.0 before 12.10.0. Users of filesystem based services with write access that were exposed over the network (i.e. FTP) are affected and recommended to upgrade to version 12.10.0 that fixes the issue.

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.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-48769Same product: Apache Nuttx
CVE-2025-47869Same product: Apache Nuttx
CVE-2025-35003Same product: Apache Nuttx
CVE-2025-47868Same product: Apache Nuttx
CVE-2025-48431Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2025-66168Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2025-55753Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2026-55969Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2026-41602Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2026-68481Same vendor: Apache

Affected Assets

apache
nuttx
10.0.0 — 12.10.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation directly exercises deallocation paths and can find incorrect release calls or mismatched alloc/free pairs.

Documented development standards and tools can mandate safe memory-management idioms and static checks that avoid invalid releases.

An SDLC that incorporates security can embed memory-safety requirements, reducing the chance such coding errors are introduced.

Engineering principles require correct resource management and memory-release patterns that stop invalid pointer releases from being coded.

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 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent invalid pointer release errors during development.

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 can detect invalid pointer releases before release.

prevents

Secure SDLC practices can mandate proper memory-management APIs and reviews that catch incorrect deallocation.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify correct use of release functions and pointer validation.

prevents

Secure architecture principles include safe memory handling and resource-lifetime rules.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly prohibit mismatched or incorrect pointer-release calls.

References