CVE-2025-31990 is a vulnerability classified under CWE-770, which involves allocation of resources without limits or throttling, specifically in HCL Software's DevOps Velocity product. The root cause is the absence of enforced rate limiting on certain API endpoints, allowing an authenticated attacker with high privileges to send an excessive number of requests. This results in resource exhaustion, overwhelming the system's capacity to handle legitimate traffic, and leading to a denial of service condition. The vulnerability affects versions prior to 5.1.7, with the vendor having released a fix in that version. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 6.8, reflecting a medium severity level, with the vector indicating network attack vector (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring privileges (PR:H), no user interaction (UI:N), and a scope change (S:C). The impact is solely on availability (A:H), with no impact on confidentiality or integrity. Although no known exploits have been reported in the wild, the vulnerability poses a significant risk to service continuity, especially in environments where HCL DevOps Velocity is critical to software delivery pipelines. The lack of rate limiting can be exploited to degrade or halt DevOps operations, potentially causing delays and operational disruptions.

For European organizations, the primary impact is on availability of the HCL DevOps Velocity platform, which could disrupt continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflows. This disruption can delay software releases, impact development productivity, and cause operational downtime. Organizations relying heavily on automated DevOps processes may face cascading effects on dependent systems and services. Since the vulnerability requires high privilege authentication, insider threats or compromised privileged accounts pose a significant risk. The absence of confidentiality or integrity impact reduces risks related to data breaches but does not mitigate the operational risks. In sectors such as finance, manufacturing, and telecommunications, where DevOps velocity is critical, service interruptions could have financial and reputational consequences. Additionally, regulatory requirements in Europe concerning service availability and operational resilience (e.g., NIS Directive) may increase the urgency to remediate this vulnerability.

European organizations should immediately upgrade HCL DevOps Velocity to version 5.1.7 or later to apply the official patch. Until patching is complete, implement strict network-level rate limiting and API gateway throttling to control request volumes to vulnerable endpoints. Monitor API usage patterns for anomalous spikes indicative of abuse. Enforce strong access controls and multi-factor authentication for privileged accounts to reduce risk of unauthorized exploitation. Conduct regular audits of privileged user activity and review logs for signs of attempted DoS attacks. Consider deploying Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block excessive request rates. Develop incident response plans specifically addressing potential DoS scenarios affecting DevOps infrastructure. Finally, engage with HCL support for any additional recommended mitigations or updates.