VulnerabilityPublished 12 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-5462: Ivanti Connect Secure · Heap-based Buffer Overflow

Affects Ivanti Connect SecureSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

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

EPSS: 1.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 66% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
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: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
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 Aug 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 26 Oct 2026.

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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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
Ivanti Connect Secure	Affected =22.8	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Organizations should immediately verify their Ivanti product versions and apply the vendor-released patches or updates that fix this vulnerability (released on August 2, 2025). If patching is not immediately feasible, network-level mitigations such as restricting access to Ivanti Connect Secure and related services to trusted IP ranges can reduce exposure. Implementing Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) or Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) with signatures or anomaly detection for buffer overflow attempts may provide temporary protection. Monitoring logs and network traffic for unusual connection attempts or service crashes can help detect exploitation attempts early. Additionally, organizations should review and harden remote access policies, enforce multi-factor authentication (even though not required for this exploit, it improves overall security posture), and ensure incident response plans include scenarios for remote access service outages. Regular backups and business continuity plans should be validated to minimize operational impact in case of prolonged denial of service.

Description

A heap-based buffer overflow in Ivanti Connect Secure before 22.7R2.8 or 22.8R2, Ivanti Policy Secure before 22.7R1.5, Ivanti ZTA Gateway before 22.8R2.3-723 and Ivanti Neurons for Secure Access before 22.8R1.4 (Fix deployed on 02-Aug-2025) allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to trigger a denial of service.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to the availability of critical remote access infrastructure. Ivanti Connect Secure and related products are widely deployed in enterprises to provide secure VPN and zero trust access solutions. A successful exploitation could cause denial of service, interrupting remote connectivity for employees, partners, and contractors. This disruption could lead to operational downtime, loss of productivity, and potential delays in critical business processes. Organizations in sectors such as finance, healthcare, government, and manufacturing—where secure remote access is essential—may experience heightened impact. Additionally, the lack of confidentiality or integrity impact reduces the risk of data breaches but does not mitigate the operational risks associated with service outages. Given the remote and unauthenticated nature of the exploit, attackers could launch DoS attacks at scale, potentially targeting multiple organizations simultaneously. This could be leveraged as part of broader disruptive campaigns or ransomware attacks that rely on denying access to systems.

CWE-122Heap-based Buffer Overflow (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #16
A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc().
Pre-design: Use a language or compiler that performs automatic bounds checking.
Architecture and Design
Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. Not a complete solution.
Operation · Build and Compilation · Environment Hardening
Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Forced Integer Overflow (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

forums.ivanti.com/s/article/August-Security-Advisory-Ivanti-Connect-Secure-Policy-Secure-ZTA-Gateways-Multiple-CVEs?language=en_US (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 12 Aug 2025, 15:19 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-122

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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