Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-53901

Low

Published: 18 July 2025

Published
18 July 2025
Modified
04 September 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 3.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0038 59.8th percentile
Risk Priority 7 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-53901 is a low-severity Operation on a Resource after Expiration or Release (CWE-672) vulnerability in Bytecodealliance Wasmtime. Its CVSS base score is 3.5 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked in the top 40.2% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Wasmtime is a runtime for WebAssembly. Prior to versions 24.0.4, 33.0.2, and 34.0.2, a bug in Wasmtime's implementation of the WASIp1 set of import functions can lead to a WebAssembly guest inducing a panic in the host (embedder). The specific…

more

bug is triggered by calling `path_open` after calling `fd_renumber` with either two equal argument values or a second argument being equal to a previously-closed file descriptor number value. The corrupt state introduced in `fd_renumber` will lead to the subsequent opening of a file descriptor to panic. This panic cannot introduce memory unsafety or allow WebAssembly to break outside of its sandbox, however. There is no possible heap corruption or memory unsafety from this panic. This bug is in the implementation of Wasmtime's `wasmtime-wasi` crate which provides an implementation of WASIp1. The bug requires a specially crafted call to `fd_renumber` in addition to the ability to open a subsequent file descriptor. Opening a second file descriptor is only possible when a preopened directory was provided to the guest, and this is common amongst embeddings. A panic in the host is considered a denial-of-service vector for WebAssembly embedders and is thus a security issue in Wasmtime. This bug does not affect WASIp2 and embedders using components. In accordance with Wasmtime's release process, patch releases are available as 24.0.4, 33.0.2, and 34.0.2. Users of other release of Wasmtime are recommended to move to a supported release of Wasmtime. Embedders who are using components or are not providing guest access to create more file descriptors (e.g. via a preopened filesystem directory) are not affected by this issue. Otherwise, there is no workaround at this time, and affected embeddings are recommended to update to a patched version which will not cause a panic in the host.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

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 allows a WebAssembly guest to trigger a host panic via crafted fd_renumber and path_open calls in WASIp1, enabling endpoint denial of service through application exploitation.

MITRE ATLAS TechniquesAI

MITRE ATLAS techniques

AML.T0048: External Harms

Affected Assets

bytecodealliance
wasmtime
≤ 24.0.4 · 33.0.0 — 33.0.2 · 34.0.0 — 34.0.2

Mitigating Controls

No mitigating controls mapped yet. The per-CVE control annotator has not reached this CVE.

References