CVE-2025-59694
Entrust Nshield 5C Firmware ≤ 13.6.12
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2025-59694 is a medium-severity Improper Access Control for Volatile Memory Containing Boot Code (CWE-1274) vulnerability in Entrust Nshield 5C Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 6.8 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Pre-OS Boot (T1542); ranked at the 19th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-200260
Vulnerability Data
The Chassis Management Board in Entrust nShield Connect XC, nShield 5c, and nShield HSMi through 13.6.11, or 13.7 (patched in 13.6.12 (LTS) and 13.9.0 (STS)), allows a physically proximate attacker to persistently modify firmware and influence the (insecurely configured) appliance…
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boot process. To exploit this, the attacker must modify the firmware via JTAG or perform an upgrade to the chassis management board firmware. This is called F03.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-3 directly enforces access authorizations on system resources including the volatile memory region holding boot code.
AC-6 restricts privileges so that only authorized processes can access the volatile memory containing boot code.
SC-3 isolates security functions such as boot code from non-security code, structurally preventing unauthorized access to the VM region.
SC-39 maintains separate execution domains that can isolate bootloader code loaded into volatile memory.
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.DS-10 directly requires protecting data-in-use (including VM) from unauthorized access, eliminating most of this specific boot-code exposure, yet the weakness also spans secure-boot process design and NVM-to-VM transfer that one general data-protection outcome does not fully close.
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.
Logging can detect unauthorized writes to volatile memory but does not prevent the weakness.
Restricting privileged utilities reduces the chance of tampering with boot code in volatile memory.
Privileged access rights can limit who or what can write to volatile memory used for boot code.
Secure system architecture principles include memory protection mechanisms that can mitigate this weakness.
Information access restriction directly addresses unauthorized access to volatile memory holding boot code.