Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-53963

Thermofisher Ion Torrent Onetouch 2 Firmware

Published
04 December 2025
Modified
16 December 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 9.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0045 37th percentile
Risk Priority 71 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-2025-53963 is a critical-severity Weak Password Requirements (CWE-521) vulnerability in Thermofisher Ion Torrent Onetouch 2 Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Brute Force (T1110); ranked at the 37th 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 IA-5 (Authenticator Management) — 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-2025-53963 is a vulnerability in Thermo Fisher Ion Torrent OneTouch 2 INS1005527 devices, which run an SSH server accessible over the default port 22. The root account uses a weak default password of "ionadmin," and no password change policy is enforced for this account. This issue falls under CWE-521 (Weak Password Requirements) and 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). It only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer.

An attacker with network connectivity to the device can exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the SSH server as root using the default password "ionadmin," enabling full root-level code execution on the device. No special privileges, user interaction, or complex conditions are required for exploitation.

References provided include Thermo Fisher product documentation such as the Ion OneTouch 2 System User Guide, Ion OneTouch 2 and Torrent Suite Software Product Guide, and OneTouch 2 Specification Sheet, but no vendor advisories or patches are specified. Given that the affected products are no longer supported, no mitigations such as updates or enforced password policies are available from the maintainer.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A07:2025 Authentication Failures

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An issue was discovered on Thermo Fisher Ion Torrent OneTouch 2 INS1005527 devices. They run an SSH server accessible over the default port 22. The root account has a weak default password of ionadmin, and a password change policy for…

more

the root account is not enforced. Thus, an attacker with network connectivity can achieve root code execution. NOTE: This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer.

CWE(s)
CWE-521

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1110 Brute Force Credential Access
Adversaries may use brute force techniques to gain access to accounts when passwords are unknown or when password hashes are obtained.
attack.mitre.org →
T1110.001 Password Guessing Credential Access
Adversaries with no prior knowledge of legitimate credentials within the system or environment may guess passwords to attempt access to accounts.
attack.mitre.org →
T1110.002 Password Cracking Credential Access
Adversaries may use password cracking to attempt to recover usable credentials, such as plaintext passwords, when credential material such as password hashes are obtained.
attack.mitre.org →
T1110.003 Password Spraying Credential Access
Adversaries may use a single or small list of commonly used passwords against many different accounts to attempt to acquire valid account credentials.
attack.mitre.org →
T1133 External Remote Services Persistence
Adversaries may leverage external-facing remote services to initially access and/or persist within a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1558.003 Kerberoasting Credential Access
Adversaries may abuse a valid Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT) or sniff network traffic to obtain a ticket-granting service (TGS) ticket that may be vulnerable to [Brute Force](https://attack.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-54304Same product: Thermofisher Ion Torrent Onetouch 2
CVE-2025-26847Shared CWE-521
CVE-2024-40697Shared CWE-521
CVE-2025-12552Shared CWE-521
CVE-2025-11322Shared CWE-521
CVE-2024-51398Shared CWE-521
CVE-2023-31098Shared CWE-521
CVE-2023-29974Shared CWE-521
CVE-2025-9514Shared CWE-521
CVE-2026-41038Shared CWE-521

Affected Assets

thermofisher
ion torrent onetouch 2 firmware
all versions

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 2 hardening rules · 1 OS baseline
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V6.2.4
  • V6.2.9
  • V6.2.12
  • V6.4.1

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

IA-5 Authenticator Management good match

IA-5 directly requires organizations to enforce strength, complexity, and change rules for passwords and other authenticators at issuance and reset.

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.AA-03 full match
prevents

Explicitly requires enforcing minimum password strength as part of authentication.

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.

A.5.17 Authentication information mostly match
prevents

Enforcing minimum length, complexity, non-dictionary, and non-reuse rules directly counters weak password policies that allow attackers to guess or brute-force credentials.

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).

RHEL 7 (2 rules)
  • V-204424 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not allow accounts configured with blank or null passwords. prevents CWE-521
  • V-204425 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that the SSH daemon does not allow authentication using an empty password. prevents CWE-521

References