Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-54472

Memory Safety in Apache Brpc ≤ 1.14.1

Published
14 August 2025
Modified
17 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.012 65th percentile
Risk Priority 60 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-54472 is a high-severity Integer Overflow or Wraparound (CWE-190) vulnerability in Apache Brpc. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Exhaustion Flood (T1499.001); ranked in the top 35% 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 SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) — 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.

Apache bRPC contains an unlimited memory allocation flaw in its Redis protocol parser affecting all versions prior to 1.14.1 on every platform. The parser allocates memory for arrays or strings using integer sizes read directly from the network; excessively large values trigger a bad_alloc condition that crashes the process. Version 1.14.0 attempted to add a size limit but introduced an integer-overflow bypass, leaving it equally vulnerable. The issue is tracked as CWE-190 and CWE-400 with a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5.

An unauthenticated network attacker can send a single specially crafted Redis-protocol packet to any bRPC instance that acts as a Redis server for untrusted clients or as a Redis client connecting to untrusted servers, resulting in an immediate denial-of-service crash. No authentication or user interaction is required.

Public advisories direct users to upgrade to bRPC 1.14.1 or to apply the patch from GitHub pull request 3050. The fix caps each allocation at a default of 64 MiB (tunable via the redis_max_allocation_size gflag) to prevent oversized requests from reaching the allocator.

EPSS remains flat at 0.0140 with no material increase after disclosure, indicating limited observed exploitation interest to date.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Unlimited memory allocation in redis protocol parser in Apache bRPC (all versions < 1.14.1) on all platforms allows attackers to crash the service via network. Root Cause: In the bRPC Redis protocol parser code, memory for arrays or strings of…

more

corresponding sizes is allocated based on the integers read from the network. If the integer read from the network is too large, it may cause a bad alloc error and lead to the program crashing. Attackers can exploit this feature by sending special data packets to the bRPC service to carry out a denial-of-service attack on it. The bRPC 1.14.0 version tried to fix this issue by limited the memory allocation size, however, the limitation checking code is not well implemented that may cause integer overflow and evade such limitation. So the 1.14.0 version is also vulnerable, although the integer range that affect version 1.14.0 is different from that affect version < 1.14.0. Affected scenarios: Using bRPC as a Redis server to provide network services to untrusted clients, or using bRPC as a Redis client to call untrusted Redis services. How to Fix: we provide two methods, you can choose one of them: 1. Upgrade bRPC to version 1.14.1. 2. Apply this patch ( https://github.com/apache/brpc/pull/3050 ) manually. No matter you choose which method, you should note that the patch limits the maximum length of memory allocated for each time in the bRPC Redis parser. The default limit is 64M. If some of you redis request or response have a size larger than 64M, you might encounter error after upgrade. For such case, you can modify the gflag redis_max_allocation_size to set a larger limit.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499.001 OS Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may launch a denial of service (DoS) attack targeting an endpoint's operating system (OS).
T1498 Network Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Network Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of targeted resources to users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.002 Service Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target the different network services provided by systems to conduct a denial of service (DoS).
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-31039Same product: Apache Brpc
CVE-2025-60021Same product: Apache Brpc
CVE-2024-23452Same product: Apache Brpc
CVE-2025-59789Same product: Apache Brpc
CVE-2023-45757Same product: Apache Brpc
CVE-2023-42503Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2024-32007Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2026-66299Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2026-66144Same vendor: Apache
CVE-2025-48392Same vendor: Apache

Affected Assets

apache
brpc
≤ 1.14.1

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V5.2.6

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (static analysis, fuzzing, unit tests) directly finds integer overflow defects before deployment.

SC-5 directly limits the effects of resource-exhaustion events that constitute uncontrolled consumption.

SC-6 enforces explicit allocation limits on resources, structurally preventing the weakness from occurring.

Secure engineering principles require use of safe arithmetic constructs or language features that structurally eliminate integer overflow during calculation.

Process isolation confines resource consumption to separate domains, reducing blast radius without stopping the root flaw.

Input validation enforces bounds on values before arithmetic, stopping the conditions that trigger overflow or wraparound.

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.IR-04 mostly match
prevents

Explicitly requires monitoring and maintaining resource capacity, directly addressing uncontrolled consumption to preserve availability.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require use of safe arithmetic, bounds checks, and testing that prevent integer overflows.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Continuous monitoring of computing resources can detect resource exhaustion but does not itself enforce allocation limits.

PR.IR-03 partial match
prevents

Resilience mechanisms such as avoiding single points of failure indirectly reduce impact of resource exhaustion.

PR.PS-01 partial match
prevents

Hardened configuration baselines can include resource quotas and limits that constrain consumption.

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

Resource-utilization monitoring and alerting on bottlenecks or overloads limits the impact of denial-of-service or resource-exhaustion attacks.

finds

Security testing in development can detect integer overflows before release.

prevents

By continuously monitoring utilization, stress-testing peak loads, and maintaining documented plans to scale or throttle resources, the control directly limits an attacker’s ability to drive a system into uncontrolled resource exhaustion.

finds

Pre-agreed severity-based prioritization and resource allocation during incident triage reduce the likelihood that an attacker-induced resource exhaustion will overwhelm the organization before corrective action is taken.

mitigates

Business-continuity plans that include resource-management controls reduce the likelihood that an attacker can trigger uncontrolled resource consumption by forcing the system into a degraded or fallback state.

mitigates

Defining RTOs and capacity requirements for ICT services during business-impact analysis forces organizations to provision sufficient resources and throttling mechanisms, reducing the likelihood that an attacker can induce denial-of-service through uncontrolled resource consumption.

References