CVE-2025-54494
Published: 25 August 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-54494 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-16 (Memory Protection) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Requires organizations to identify, report, and correct flaws like the stack-based buffer overflow in libbiosig by applying patches from the Talos advisory.
Implements memory protection mechanisms such as stack canaries, ASLR, and DEP to prevent arbitrary code execution from stack-based buffer overflows during MFER parsing.
Mandates validation of information inputs like MFER file lengths and structures to block specially crafted files from triggering the unvalidated ifread call.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Remote unauthenticated arbitrary code execution via crafted file supplied to vulnerable parser in public-facing applications directly enables exploitation of exposed services.
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 9205 of biosig.c on the current master branch (35a819fa), when the Tag is 133: else if (tag==133) //0x85 { curPos += ifread(buf,1,len,hdr);
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2025-54494 is a stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability (CWE-121) in the MFER parsing functionality of The Biosig Project's libbiosig version 3.9.0 and the master branch at commit 35a819fa. The issue occurs in biosig.c at line 9205, where the code handles tag 133 by reading data into a buffer via `curPos += ifread(buf,1,len,hdr);` without sufficient bounds checking. A specially crafted MFER file can trigger this overflow, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution.
The vulnerability has 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, no privileges or user interaction required. An attacker can supply a malicious MFER file to any application or system using the affected libbiosig versions for parsing such files, achieving arbitrary code execution with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Details on mitigation and patches are available in the Talos Intelligence advisory TALOS-2025-2234, accessible at https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2025-2234.
Details
- CWE(s)