CVE-2025-14104VulnerabilityPublished 5 Dec 2025Updated 15 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-14104: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · Out-of-bounds Read

Affects Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.1 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.1Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 9% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component 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 remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; 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 impacted component (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).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 5 Dec 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

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-14104, European organizations should prioritize applying official patches from Red Hat as soon as they become available. In the interim, organizations can audit and restrict username lengths to below 256 bytes to prevent triggering the over-read condition. Review and harden access controls to limit local user privileges, reducing the number of accounts capable of exploiting this vulnerability. Implement monitoring for unusual crashes or denial of service symptoms in login utilities and related authentication services. Consider deploying application whitelisting and integrity monitoring on critical system binaries to detect unauthorized modifications or crashes. Conduct thorough testing of authentication workflows with edge-case usernames to identify potential triggers. Additionally, organizations should review their incident response plans to quickly address any denial of service incidents related to this vulnerability. For environments with high security requirements, consider isolating critical authentication services or using alternative authentication mechanisms until patches are applied. Finally, maintain up-to-date inventory of systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 to ensure comprehensive coverage of mitigation efforts.

Description

A flaw was found in util-linux. This vulnerability allows a heap buffer overread when processing 256-byte usernames, specifically within the `setpwnam()` function, affecting SUID (Set User ID) login-utils utilities writing to the password database.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2025-14104 is the potential for denial of service on systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, particularly those that rely on SUID login utilities for authentication and user management. This could lead to temporary loss of access to critical systems or services, affecting business continuity and operational stability. Confidentiality impact is limited but may include partial leakage of memory contents due to the heap over-read, which could expose sensitive information in some scenarios. The requirement for local privileges limits the attack surface to internal threat actors or compromised accounts. Organizations operating critical infrastructure, data centers, or cloud environments using RHEL 10 are at higher risk, especially if they have automated processes or scripts that depend on these utilities. The absence of known exploits in the wild reduces immediate risk, but the medium severity rating and the nature of the vulnerability warrant prompt attention. Disruption of authentication services can have cascading effects on compliance, user productivity, and incident response capabilities. The impact is more pronounced in environments with high user turnover or where usernames of unusual length might be processed, potentially triggering the vulnerability.

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 19 Dec 2025, 17:41 UTC

Technical details

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