VulnerabilityPublished 8 Sep 2025

CVE-2025-57816: ethyca fides · Improper Control of Interaction Frequency

Affects ethyca fidesSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.3 Medium : upgrade to 2.69.1 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

6.3Medium

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

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 37% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 2.69.1

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: Present
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: Low
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

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

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, 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: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: Present: The successful attack depends on the presence of specific deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system that enable the attack. These include: a race condition must be won to successfully exploit the vulnerability (the successfulness of the attack is conditioned on execution conditions that are not under full control of the attacker, or the attack may need to be launched multiple times against a single target before being successful); the attacker must inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim (e.g. vulnerabilities requiring an on-path attacker).
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the Vulnerable System are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 8 Sep 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

Upgrade ethyca fides to 2.69.1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
ethyca fides	Affected <2.69.1	Fixed in 2.69.1

AI-suggested

European organizations should upgrade all Fides deployments to version 2.69.1 or later to remediate the vulnerability directly. For environments where immediate upgrading is not feasible, implementing external rate limiting at the infrastructure level is critical. This can be achieved by configuring Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), API gateways, or load balancers to enforce client IP-based rate limits, ensuring that rate limiting is applied consistently regardless of underlying infrastructure IPs. Organizations should verify that these external controls correctly identify and use the original client IP, typically by inspecting HTTP headers such as X-Forwarded-For or using proxy protocol features. Additionally, monitoring and alerting on unusual traffic patterns or spikes to the Fides API can help detect potential abuse attempts early. Network segmentation and limiting exposure of the Fides API to trusted networks or VPNs can further reduce attack surface. Finally, organizations should review their incident response plans to include scenarios involving DoS attacks against privacy engineering platforms.

Description

Fides is an open-source privacy engineering platform. Prior to version 2.69.1, the Fides Webserver API's built-in IP-based rate limiting is ineffective in environments with CDNs, proxies or load balancers. The system incorrectly applies rate limits based on directly connected infrastructure IPs rather than client IPs, and stores counters in-memory rather than in a shared store. This allows attackers to bypass intended rate limits and potentially cause denial of service. This vulnerability only affects deployments relying on Fides's built-in rate limiting for protection. Deployments using external rate limiting solutions (WAFs, API gateways, etc.) are not affected. Version 2.69.1 fixes the issue. There are no application-level workarounds. However, rate limiting may instead be implemented externally at the infrastructure level using a WAF, API Gateway, or similar technology.

Impact

For European organizations using Fides versions prior to 2.69.1 with the built-in rate limiting enabled and without external rate limiting controls, this vulnerability poses a risk of denial of service. Such DoS attacks could disrupt privacy engineering workflows, data processing, or compliance-related operations that rely on Fides, potentially impacting GDPR compliance efforts or other data protection activities. The inability to effectively rate limit client requests could also lead to resource exhaustion on servers, causing service degradation or outages. While the vulnerability does not directly compromise confidentiality or integrity, availability impacts can have downstream effects on business continuity and regulatory compliance. Organizations in sectors with stringent privacy requirements, such as finance, healthcare, and government, may face operational and reputational risks if their privacy engineering platforms are disrupted. However, the impact is mitigated if organizations have deployed external rate limiting solutions at the infrastructure level, which is common in enterprise environments. Since no exploits are known in the wild, the immediate threat level is moderate, but the vulnerability should be addressed proactively to prevent potential abuse.

CWE-799Improper Control of Interaction Frequency (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessOWASP Top 10 A06:2025: Insecure Design (opens in a new tab)
The product does not properly limit the number or frequency of interactions that it has with an actor, such as the number of incoming requests.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Secure Design Principles (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.2 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 16 Sep 2025, 01:02 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-799

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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