CVE-2025-10729: Qt · Use After Free
Affects QtSource CVE Database V5
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 9.4 Critical.
Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 12% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/S:P/RE:H/U:RedBase metrics
- Attack Vector
- Local
- Attack Complexity
- Low
- Attack Requirements
- None
- Privileges Required
- None
- User Interaction
- None
- Vulnerable system confidentiality
- High
- Vulnerable system integrity
- High
- Vulnerable system availability
- High
- Subsequent system confidentiality
- High
- Subsequent system integrity
- High
- Subsequent system availability
- High
Supplemental metrics
- Safety
- Present
- Vulnerability Response Effort
- High
- Provider Urgency
- Red
Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.
- Attack Vector: Local
- The vulnerable system is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or through terminal emulation (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., using social engineering techniques to trick a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
- Attack Complexity: Low
- The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
- Attack Requirements: None
- The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
- Privileges Required: None
- The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
- User Interaction: None
- The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
- Vulnerable system confidentiality: High
- There is a total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all information within the Vulnerable System being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact. For example, an attacker steals the administrator's password, or private encryption keys of a web server.
- Vulnerable system integrity: High
- There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the vulnerable system. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the vulnerable system.
- Vulnerable system availability: High
- There is a total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the Vulnerable System; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).
- Subsequent system confidentiality: High
- There is a total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the Subsequent System being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact. For example, an attacker steals the administrator's password, or private encryption keys of a web server.
- Subsequent system integrity: High
- There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the Subsequent System. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the Subsequent System.
- Subsequent system availability: High
- There is a total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the Subsequent System; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the Subsequent System (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).
- Safety: Present
- Consequences of the vulnerability meet definition of IEC 61508 consequence categories of "marginal," "critical," or "catastrophic."
- Vulnerability Response Effort: High
- The actions required to respond to a vulnerability are significant and/or difficult, and may possibly lead to an extended, scheduled service impact. This would need to be considered for scheduling purposes including honoring any embargo on deployment of the selected response. Alternatively, response to the vulnerability in the field is not possible remotely. The only resolution to the vulnerability involves physical replacement (e.g. units deployed would have to be recalled for a depot level repair or replacement). Examples include: a highly privileged driver update, microcode or UEFI BIOS updates, or software upgrades requiring careful analysis and understanding of any potential infrastructure impact before implementation. A UEFI BIOS update that impacts Trusted Platform Module (TPM) attestation without impacting disk encryption software such as Bit locker is a good recent example. Irreparable failures such as non-bootable flash subsystems, failed disks or solid-state drives (SSD), bad memory modules, network devices, or other non-recoverable under warranty hardware, should also be scored as having a High effort.
- Provider Urgency: Red
- Provider has assessed the impact of this vulnerability as having the highest urgency.
Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.
Exploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 3 Oct 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors
A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.
- Disclosed
- The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
- Detectable
- A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
- Weaponised
- Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
- Exploited in the wild
- CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
- Observed by OffSeq Mirage
- OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.
Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.
What to do
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| Qt Qt | Affected
| Fixed in– |
AI-suggested
Until a fix is available, avoid processing untrusted XML data that could trigger this vulnerability.
Description
The module will parse a <pattern> node which is not a child of a structural node. The node will be deleted after creation but might be accessed later leading to a use after free.
Impact
Successful exploitation of this use-after-free vulnerability can lead to memory corruption, which may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, crash the application, or cause denial of service. The CVSS vector indicates local attack vector with low complexity, no privileges or user interaction required, and high impact on all security properties.
Summary
This vulnerability in Qt involves improper handling of a <pattern> node during XML parsing. The node is deleted after creation but may be accessed afterward, resulting in a use-after-free condition (CWE-416). The CVSS 4.0 base score is 9.4, indicating critical severity with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The vulnerability affects Qt versions 6.7.0 and 6.9.0.
- CWE-416Use After Free (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #7
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
Architecture and Design · Language Selection
Choose a language that provides automatic memory management.
Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
When freeing pointers, be sure to set them to NULL once they are freed. However, the utilization of multiple or complex data structures may lower the usefulness of this strategy.
- OWASP Cheat Sheets
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
- Assigned by (CNA)
- TQtC
- Reserved
- CVSS version
- 4.0
References
Community reviews
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