CVE-2025-53511
Published: 25 August 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-53511 is a critical-severity Heap-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-122) vulnerability in Libbiosig Project Libbiosig. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 32.8% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-16 (Memory Protection) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Deeper analysis
A heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-53511 and associated with CWE-122, affects the MFER parsing functionality in The Biosig Project's libbiosig version 3.9.0 and the master branch at commit 35a819fa. Published on 2025-08-25, this flaw allows a specially crafted MFER file to trigger the overflow, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8, reflecting its critical severity due to high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
The issue can be exploited remotely over a network with low complexity, requiring no privileges, no user interaction, and without changing the scope (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Any attacker capable of providing a malicious MFER file to a vulnerable application using libbiosig can trigger the buffer overflow and achieve arbitrary code execution, potentially compromising the affected system.
For mitigation details, refer to the primary advisory at https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2025-2237, which provides further analysis from Talos Intelligence.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-25686
Vulnerability details
A heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the MFER parsing functionality of The Biosig Project libbiosig 3.9.0 and Master Branch (35a819fa). A specially crafted MFER file can lead to arbitrary code execution. An attacker can provide a malicious file to…
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trigger this vulnerability.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Heap buffer overflow in remote file parsing library enables unauthenticated remote code execution via malicious MFER input (AV:N/PR:N/UI:N).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Timely flaw remediation through patching or updating libbiosig directly eliminates the heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in MFER parsing.
Memory protection safeguards like ASLR, DEP, and heap isolation prevent successful exploitation of the heap buffer overflow leading to arbitrary code execution.
Input validation of MFER files prior to parsing in libbiosig mitigates processing of specially crafted files that trigger the buffer overflow.