CVE-2025-33096VulnerabilityPublished 12 Oct 2025Updated 14 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-33096: IBM Engineering Requirements Management Doors Next · Uncontrolled Recursion

Affects IBM Engineering Requirements Management Doors NextSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

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

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 23% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

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

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

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within 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 12 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 2026-10-26.

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
IBM Engineering Requirements Management Doors Next	Affected =7.0.2 =7.0.3 =7.1	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

1. Restrict file upload permissions to only trusted and necessary users to reduce the attack surface. 2. Implement strict input validation and scanning of uploaded files to detect and block malformed or suspicious content that could trigger recursion. 3. Monitor application resource usage (CPU, memory) closely to detect abnormal spikes that may indicate exploitation attempts. 4. Enforce strong authentication and credential management policies to prevent unauthorized access. 5. Isolate the DOORS Next environment where possible to limit impact scope. 6. Engage with IBM support and subscribe to security advisories to obtain patches or updates as soon as they become available. 7. Consider implementing rate limiting or upload size restrictions to mitigate resource exhaustion risks. 8. Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on file upload functionalities. 9. Prepare incident response plans specifically addressing denial of service scenarios in engineering tools. 10. Educate users about the risks of uploading untrusted files even within authenticated sessions.

Description

IBM Engineering Requirements Management Doors Next 7.0.2, 7.0.3, and 7.1 could allow an authenticated user to cause a denial of service by uploading specially crafted files using uncontrolled recursion.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact is a denial of service that can disrupt engineering and development processes relying on IBM DOORS Next. This can delay project timelines, reduce productivity, and potentially impact compliance with regulatory requirements in industries such as automotive, aerospace, defense, and manufacturing where requirements traceability is critical. Since the vulnerability requires authentication, insider threats or compromised credentials pose a significant risk. The lack of confidentiality or integrity impact limits data breach concerns, but availability interruptions can have cascading effects on dependent systems and teams. Organizations with large-scale deployments or those integrating DOORS Next into continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines may experience amplified disruption. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate risk, but the medium severity score and the critical nature of affected processes warrant proactive mitigation.

CWE-674Uncontrolled Recursion (opens in a new tab)
Class weakness
The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.
Implementation
Ensure that an end condition will be reached under all logic conditions. The end condition may include checking against the depth of recursion and exiting with an error if the recursion goes too deep. The complexity of the end condition contributes to the effectiveness of this action.
Implementation
Increase the stack size.
Attack patterns
Serialized Data with Nested Payloads (opens in a new tab)
Oversized Serialized Data Payloads (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

ibm.com/support/pages/node/7247716 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 20 Oct 2025, 01:15 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-674

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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