CVE-2025-69260
Published: 08 January 2026
Summary
CVE-2025-69260 is a high-severity Classic Buffer Overflow (CWE-120) vulnerability in Trendmicro Apex Central. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked in the top 31.6% 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 SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Directly remediates the out-of-bounds read vulnerability by requiring timely patching of the affected Trend Micro Apex Central software.
Implements technical controls to protect against denial-of-service attacks triggered by the unauthenticated remote exploitation of this vulnerability.
Ensures incoming messages are validated to prevent malformed inputs from causing the out-of-bounds read and subsequent DoS condition.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Out-of-bounds read enables remote unauthenticated application crash resulting in endpoint DoS via exploitation.
NVD Description
A message out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex Central could allow a remote attacker to create a denial-of-service condition on affected installations. Please note: authentication is not required in order to exploit this vulnerability.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2025-69260 is a message out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex Central that could allow a remote attacker to create a denial-of-service condition on affected installations. Published on 2026-01-08, the issue is linked to CWE-120 (Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input), CWE-346 (Origin Validation Error), and CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read), with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), indicating high availability impact without confidentiality or integrity effects.
The vulnerability can be exploited by any remote attacker over the network, as authentication is not required. Attackers need only low complexity, no privileges, and no user interaction to trigger the out-of-bounds read, resulting in a denial-of-service condition that disrupts service availability on vulnerable Apex Central installations.
Trend Micro has published security advisories detailing the issue and mitigation steps, available at https://success.trendmicro.com/en-US/solution/KA-0022071 (English) and https://success.trendmicro.com/ja-JP/solution/KA-0022081 (Japanese). Additional technical analysis is provided in Tenable's research advisory at https://www.tenable.com/security/research/tra-2026-01.
Details
- CWE(s)