Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-68471

Avahi ≤ 0.9

Public PoC
Published
12 January 2026
Modified
16 January 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0035 28th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-68471 is a medium-severity Reachable Assertion (CWE-617) vulnerability in Avahi Avahi. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 28th 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 SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) and SC-7 (Boundary Protection) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Avahi is a system which facilitates service discovery on a local network via the mDNS/DNS-SD protocol suite. In 0.9-rc2 and earlier, avahi-daemon can be crashed by sending 2 unsolicited announcements with CNAME resource records 2 seconds apart.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Why these techniques?

CVE enables remote crash of Avahi daemon via crafted mDNS packets, directly mapping to application exploitation for DoS.

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

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-68468Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2026-34933Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2025-68276Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2026-24401Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2025-59529Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2023-38469Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2023-38472Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2023-38471Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2023-38473Same product: Avahi Avahi
CVE-2023-38470Same product: Avahi Avahi

Affected Assets

avahi
avahi
0.9 · ≤ 0.9

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • SC-7 Boundary Protection
  • SC-5 Denial-of-service Protection
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)
  • SC-5 Denial-of-service Protection
  • SI-4 System Monitoring
Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Boundary protection can filter or drop unsolicited mDNS announcements with malformed CNAME records before they reach avahi-daemon.

preventdetect

Denial-of-service protection mechanisms can be configured to rate-limit or discard the specific multicast DNS traffic pattern that triggers the reachable assertion crash.

detect

System monitoring can identify anomalous mDNS packets or the resulting daemon crash, enabling rapid response to this DoS vector.

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.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent unsafe assertions from being coded in reachable paths.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime monitoring of software can detect assertion-triggered crashes as adverse events.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability identification processes can discover and record reachable-assertion flaws before deployment.

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.

detects

Security testing in development can detect reachable assertions before release, reducing the likelihood of exploitation.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates defensive coding and input validation that prevent reachable assertions from being triggered by untrusted data.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify that assertions must not be reachable from attacker-controlled inputs.

prevents

Secure architecture principles discourage the use of assertions for runtime error handling that an attacker could exploit.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly ban the use of assert() or equivalent statements that can be triggered by external input.

References