Skip to main content
VulnerabilityPublished Updated

CVE-2025-57052: cJSON · Improper Validation of Array Index

Source CVE Database V5

0

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 9.8 Critical.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 15:59 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
9.8Critical
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 54% 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:H/I:H/A:H

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 3 Sep 2025

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq 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.

What to do

AI-suggested

  1. Immediately inventory all software and devices using cJSON versions 1.5.0 through 1.7.18 to identify vulnerable instances.
  2. Monitor official cJSON repositories and security advisories for patches addressing CVE-2025-57052 and apply updates promptly once released.
  3. Until patches are available, implement strict input validation to reject malformed JSON pointer strings, especially those containing suspicious alphanumeric sequences that could trigger out-of-bounds access.
  4. Employ sandboxing or isolation techniques for JSON parsing components to limit the impact of potential exploitation.
  5. Enhance logging and monitoring to detect anomalous JSON pointer usage or unexpected memory access patterns indicative of exploitation attempts.
  6. For embedded and IoT devices, coordinate with vendors to obtain firmware updates or mitigations.
  7. Conduct penetration testing and code reviews focused on JSON processing to uncover similar vulnerabilities.
  8. Educate development teams on secure coding practices related to memory management and input validation in C-based libraries.
  9. Consider deploying runtime application self-protection (RASP) or memory protection mechanisms such as AddressSanitizer in development and testing environments to detect out-of-bounds accesses early.
  10. Prepare incident response plans to quickly contain and remediate any exploitation events related to this vulnerability.

Description

cJSON 1.5.0 through 1.7.18 allows out-of-bounds access via the decode_array_index_from_pointer function in cJSON_Utils.c, allowing remote attackers to bypass array bounds checking and access restricted data via malformed JSON pointer strings containing alphanumeric characters.

References

Community reviews

Loading reviews…