CVE-2025-15504VulnerabilityPublished 10 Jan 2026Updated 23 Feb 2026

CVE-2025-15504: LIEF · NULL Pointer Dereference

Affects LIEFSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.8 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

4.8Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 18% 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:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P

Base metrics

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: Low
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

Threat metrics

Exploit Maturity: POC

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: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the Vulnerable System are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System.
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.
Exploit Maturity: POC: Based on threat intelligence sources each of the following must apply: · Proof-of-concept is publicly available · No knowledge of reported attempts to exploit this vulnerability · No knowledge of publicly available solutions used to simplify attempts to exploit the vulnerability

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 10 Jan 2026
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
lief-projectLIEF	Affected =0.17.0 =0.17.1	Fixed in–
GitHublief-project/LIEF`pkg:github/lief-project/LIEF`Other threats	Affected =0.17.0 =0.17.1	Fixed in–

CPE configurations (1)

cpe:2.3:a:lief-project:lief:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-15504, organizations should upgrade all instances of the LIEF library to version 0.17.2 or later, which contains the official patch for the null pointer dereference. For environments where immediate upgrading is not feasible, consider implementing input validation or sandboxing measures to restrict the processing of untrusted ELF binaries. Employ strict access controls to limit local user permissions and prevent untrusted users from interacting with LIEF-dependent components. Monitor logs and application behavior for crashes or anomalies indicative of exploitation attempts. Integrate fuzz testing and static analysis into development pipelines to detect similar parsing vulnerabilities proactively. Additionally, isolate analysis environments to reduce the impact of potential denial of service. Maintain awareness of updates from the LIEF project and security advisories to promptly apply future patches. Finally, review and harden the security posture of systems that allow local users to submit ELF binaries for analysis or instrumentation.

Description

A security flaw has been discovered in lief-project LIEF up to 0.17.1. Affected by this issue is the function Parser::parse_binary of the file src/ELF/Parser.tcc of the component ELF Binary Parser. The manipulation results in null pointer dereference. The attack must be initiated from a local position. The exploit has been released to the public and may be used for attacks. Upgrading to version 0.17.2 can resolve this issue. The patch is identified as 81bd5d7ea0c390563f1c4c017c9019d154802978. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-15504 is denial of service through application crashes caused by null pointer dereference when processing maliciously crafted ELF binaries. This can disrupt security tools, reverse engineering platforms, or automated malware analysis pipelines that depend on LIEF for ELF parsing. While the vulnerability does not allow privilege escalation or remote code execution, the availability impact can hinder incident response, malware detection, or software analysis workflows. Organizations relying on LIEF in their security infrastructure may experience interruptions or reduced effectiveness of their tooling. Since exploitation requires local access, the threat is more significant in environments where untrusted users or processes can submit ELF binaries for analysis, such as shared research environments, CI/CD pipelines, or multi-tenant systems. The public availability of an exploit increases the likelihood of opportunistic attacks aiming to cause service disruption. However, the lack of remote exploitability and the medium CVSS score limit the overall severity. Timely patching will mitigate the risk and restore operational stability.

References

Community reviews

Loading reviews…