CVE-2025-54493
Published: 25 August 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-54493 is a critical-severity Stack-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-121) 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 44.1% 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).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Requires validation of input lengths and structures in MFER files before reading into fixed-size buffers, directly preventing the buffer overflow triggered by tag 131 with incorrect length.
Implements memory protections such as stack canaries, ASLR, and DEP to block exploitation of stack-based buffer overflows even if input validation fails.
Mandates timely remediation of identified flaws like the buffer overflow in libbiosig's MFER parsing, preventing exploitation through patching.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Stack-based buffer overflow in file parser enables remote arbitrary code execution via crafted input with no auth/UI required.
NVD Description
A stack-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.This vulnerability manifests on line 9184 of biosig.c on the current master branch (35a819fa), when the Tag is 131: else if (tag==131) //0x83 { // Patient Age if (len!=7) fprintf(stderr,"Warning MFER tag131 incorrect length %i!=7\n",len); curPos += ifread(buf,1,len,hdr);
Deeper analysisAI
A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-54493 and associated with CWE-121, affects the MFER parsing functionality in The Biosig Project's libbiosig version 3.9.0 and the master branch at commit 35a819fa. The issue occurs in biosig.c at line 9184 during handling of tag 131 (0x83), where a specially crafted MFER file can cause the overflow. This leads to arbitrary code execution when the file is parsed, as the code reads data into a fixed-size buffer without sufficient bounds checking, even issuing only a warning for incorrect lengths rather than preventing the read.
The vulnerability 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), indicating it is exploitable remotely with low complexity, requiring no privileges or user interaction. Any attacker capable of supplying a malicious MFER file to an application or system that uses libbiosig for parsing can trigger the overflow, potentially achieving arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the parsing process.
Advisories are available from Talos Intelligence at https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2025-2234 and https://www.talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2025-2234.
Details
- CWE(s)