CVE-2025-53012 is a medium-severity vulnerability classified under CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) affecting the AcademySoftwareFoundation's MaterialX library, specifically versions from 1.39.2 up to but not including 1.39.3. MaterialX is an open standard widely used for exchanging rich material and look-development content across various applications and rendering engines in the visual effects and animation industries. The vulnerability arises from the library's handling of nested imports of MaterialX files. When parsing these files, the library uses recursion to process nested imports but does not impose any limit on the depth of this import chain. An attacker can craft a deeply nested chain of MaterialX files, each importing the next, causing the parser to exhaust stack memory and crash the process. This results in a denial-of-service (DoS) condition due to stack exhaustion. The vulnerability does not require any authentication or user interaction and can be exploited remotely by supplying malicious MaterialX files to vulnerable applications. The issue was addressed in version 1.39.3 by introducing limits on the import chain depth to prevent stack exhaustion. The CVSS 4.0 base score is 5.5, reflecting a medium severity with network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges or user interaction required, and limited impact on availability only. No known exploits are reported in the wild as of the publication date.

For European organizations, especially those involved in media production, animation, visual effects, and related industries that utilize MaterialX in their rendering pipelines or content creation tools, this vulnerability poses a risk of denial-of-service attacks. An attacker could disrupt rendering workflows by supplying malicious MaterialX files, causing critical rendering or content processing applications to crash. This disruption could lead to production delays, increased operational costs, and potential loss of business continuity. While the vulnerability does not directly compromise confidentiality or integrity, the availability impact could be significant in environments relying heavily on automated rendering processes. Additionally, organizations using MaterialX in cloud-based rendering services or collaborative platforms may face increased exposure due to the network-exploitable nature of the vulnerability. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate risk, but the ease of exploitation and lack of required privileges mean that threat actors could develop exploits rapidly if motivated.

European organizations should promptly upgrade all instances of MaterialX to version 1.39.3 or later, where the vulnerability is fixed. Until upgrades can be applied, organizations should implement strict input validation and sandboxing for MaterialX files, limiting the depth of nested imports processed by their applications if possible. Monitoring and logging of MaterialX file processing should be enhanced to detect unusually deep import chains or repeated crashes indicative of exploitation attempts. Network-level protections such as application-layer firewalls or content inspection tools can be configured to block or flag suspicious MaterialX file uploads or transmissions. For cloud or shared environments, access controls should be tightened to restrict who can submit or modify MaterialX files. Additionally, organizations should review their incident response plans to include scenarios involving denial-of-service conditions caused by malformed MaterialX files. Collaboration with software vendors and service providers to ensure timely patch deployment is also critical.