CVE-2025-10937VulnerabilityPublished 23 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-10937: Oxford Nano Technologies MinKNOW · Unchecked Error Condition

Affects Oxford Nano Technologies MinKNOWSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.8 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

6.8Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 5% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: High
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

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: Low: The attacker requires privileges that provide basic capabilities that are typically limited to settings and resources owned by a single low-privileged user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges has the ability to access only non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within 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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 23 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
Oxford Nano Technologies MinKNOW	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-10937, organizations should first restrict permissions on the directory where MinKNOW creates temporary token files to prevent unauthorized users from accessing or locking these files. This can be achieved by configuring strict filesystem ACLs or using dedicated user accounts with isolated home directories for running MinKNOW. Monitoring tools should be deployed to detect unusual file locking activity on token files or related directories. Additionally, enforcing the principle of least privilege for local user accounts reduces the risk of exploitation. Oxford Nanopore Technologies should be engaged to provide a patch or update that changes the token generation process to use secure, user-specific temporary directories or atomic file operations that prevent locking interference. Until a patch is available, organizations should consider isolating sequencing systems from multi-user environments and restricting local access to trusted personnel only. Regular audits of system permissions and user activity logs will help identify potential exploitation attempts early.

Description

Oxford Nanopore Technologies' MinKNOW software at or prior to version 24.11 creates a temporary file to store the local authentication token during startup, before copying it to its final location. This temporary file is created in a directory accessible to all users on the system. An unauthorized local user or process can exploit this behavior by placing a file lock on the temporary token file using the flock system call. This prevents MinKNOW from completing the token generation process. As a result, no valid local token is created, and the software is unable to execute commands on the sequencer. This leads to a denial-of-service (DoS) condition, blocking sequencing operations.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-10937 is a denial-of-service condition that disrupts the availability of Oxford Nanopore sequencing devices controlled by MinKNOW software. For European organizations involved in genomics research, clinical diagnostics, or biotechnology relying on these sequencers, this could lead to significant operational downtime, delayed research outcomes, and potential financial losses. The inability to execute commands on the sequencer halts sequencing workflows, which may affect time-sensitive projects such as pathogen surveillance, personalized medicine, or agricultural genomics. Since the vulnerability requires local access, insider threats or compromised local accounts pose the greatest risk. The impact on confidentiality and integrity is minimal as the vulnerability does not expose or alter data directly. However, availability disruption in critical research or healthcare environments can have downstream effects on patient care or scientific progress. Organizations with shared systems or multi-user environments are particularly vulnerable due to the permissive directory permissions that allow file locking by unauthorized users.

CWE-754Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumOWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product does not check or incorrectly checks for unusual or exceptional conditions that are not expected to occur frequently during day to day operation of the product.
Requirements · Language Selection
Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation
Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is expected.
Implementation
If using exception handling, catch and throw specific exceptions instead of overly-general exceptions (CWE-396, CWE-397). Catch and handle exceptions as locally as possible so that exceptions do not propagate too far up the call stack (CWE-705). Avoid unchecked or uncaught exceptions where feasible (CWE-248).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.7 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 23 Oct 2025, 18:39 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-754

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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