CVE-2025-64712

Critical

Published: 04 February 2026

Published

04 February 2026

Modified

27 February 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0013 31.9th percentile

Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-64712 is a critical-severity Path Traversal (CWE-22) vulnerability in Unstructured Unstructured. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 31.9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match

prevent

Mandates timely remediation of the known path traversal flaw in unstructured library versions prior to 0.18.18 by applying the available patch.

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match

prevent

Requires validation of file paths in MSG attachments to block path traversal attempts during document ingestion.

SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity partial match

detect

Provides integrity checks to detect unauthorized file writes or overwrites caused by exploitation of the vulnerability.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

Path traversal vulnerability enables unauthenticated remote exploitation of document processing library via crafted MSG files for arbitrary file writes, directly mapping to T1190: Exploit Public-Facing Application.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

NVD Description

The unstructured library provides open-source components for ingesting and pre-processing images and text documents, such as PDFs, HTML, Word docs, and many more. Prior to version 0.18.18, a path traversal vulnerability in the partition_msg function allows an attacker to write…

or overwrite arbitrary files on the filesystem when processing malicious MSG files with attachments. This issue has been patched in version 0.18.18.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2025-64712 is a path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22, CWE-73) in the partition_msg function of the unstructured open-source library, which provides components for ingesting and preprocessing images and text documents such as PDFs, HTML, and Word files. Versions prior to 0.18.18 are affected, enabling attackers to write or overwrite arbitrary files on the filesystem when processing malicious MSG files containing attachments. The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (Critical), reflecting network accessibility, low attack complexity, no privileges or user interaction required, and high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Any unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this flaw by supplying a specially crafted MSG file to an application using the vulnerable library for document processing. Successful exploitation allows arbitrary file writes or overwrites on the target filesystem, potentially leading to remote code execution, data corruption, or persistence if critical files like configuration or executables are targeted.

The issue was addressed in unstructured version 0.18.18 via a patch detailed in the commit at https://github.com/Unstructured-IO/unstructured/commit/b01d35b2373fd087d2e15162b9c021663c97155d. Additional guidance is available in the GitHub security advisory at https://github.com/Unstructured-IO/unstructured/security/advisories/GHSA-gm8q-m8mv-jj5m, recommending immediate upgrades to the patched version and validation of input files.