CVE-2025-53557
Published: 25 August 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-53557 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-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-16 (Memory Protection).
Deeper analysis
A heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-53557 and associated with CWE-122, affects the MFER parsing functionality in The Biosig Project's libbiosig library, specifically version 3.9.0 and the Master Branch at commit 35a819fa. Published on 2025-08-25, this flaw carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Processing a specially crafted MFER file triggers the overflow, potentially enabling arbitrary code execution.
An unauthenticated attacker on the network can exploit this vulnerability with low complexity and no user interaction required. By providing a malicious MFER file to a vulnerable application using libbiosig, the attacker can achieve arbitrary code execution, resulting in high impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
For mitigation details, refer to the Talos Intelligence advisory at https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2025-2235.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-25684
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 MFER file parser enables remote unauthenticated arbitrary code execution (RCE) via crafted input, directly mapping to exploitation of public-facing apps or client-side execution.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Flaw remediation directly addresses the heap-based buffer overflow by identifying, reporting, and patching the vulnerability in libbiosig's MFER parsing.
Information input validation prevents exploitation by checking the validity of specially crafted MFER files before parsing in libbiosig.
Memory protection safeguards such as address space layout randomization and data execution prevention mitigate arbitrary code execution from the heap buffer overflow.