CVE-2025-5899: GNU PSPP · Free of Memory not on the Heap
Affects GNU PSPPSource CVE Database V5
Public exploit available · CVSS 4.8 Medium.
Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 5% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:PExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 9 Jun 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: evidence found.
CVSS exploit maturity: proof of concept public
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), CVSS vector, the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.
What to do
AI-suggested
European organizations should implement the following specific mitigations: 1) Restrict local access to systems running PSPP to trusted users only, enforcing the principle of least privilege to minimize the risk of exploitation. 2) Monitor and audit local user activities on systems with PSPP installed to detect any unusual behavior that might indicate exploitation attempts. 3) Isolate PSPP usage environments, such as running PSPP in sandboxed or containerized environments, to limit the impact of potential crashes or memory corruption. 4) Regularly check for updates from the GNU PSPP project and apply patches promptly once available. 5) If feasible, consider recompiling PSPP from source with additional memory safety checks or using memory debugging tools (e.g., AddressSanitizer) during development or testing phases to detect improper memory operations early. 6) Educate local users about the risks of running untrusted code or commands that interact with PSPP to reduce the chance of accidental exploitation. 7) Implement system-level protections such as SELinux or AppArmor profiles to restrict PSPP's capabilities and limit damage from exploitation.
Description
A vulnerability classified as critical was found in GNU PSPP 82fb509fb2fedd33e7ac0c46ca99e108bb3bdffb. Affected by this vulnerability is the function parse_variables_option of the file utilities/pspp-convert.c. The manipulation leads to free of memory not on the heap. An attack has to be approached locally. The exploit has been disclosed to the public and may be used.