VulnerabilityPublished 24 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-65497: NULL Pointer Dereference

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.3 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 09:15 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.3Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 20% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: Low

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: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
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: 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 impacted component 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 impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 24 Nov 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 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

AI-suggested

1. Monitor vendor advisories and apply patches or updates to libcoap as soon as they become available to address CVE-2025-65497. 2. Implement network-level filtering to detect and block malformed or suspicious DTLS handshake packets that could trigger the vulnerability. 3. Employ rate limiting on DTLS handshake attempts to reduce the risk of denial of service through repeated exploitation. 4. Use intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS) with signatures or heuristics targeting anomalous CoAP/DTLS traffic patterns. 5. Where possible, isolate vulnerable devices or services in segmented network zones to limit exposure. 6. Consider fallback mechanisms or redundancy in critical systems to maintain availability if a device is impacted. 7. Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on IoT and constrained device communications to identify similar weaknesses. 8. Educate operational technology and IoT teams about this vulnerability to ensure rapid incident response if exploitation is detected.

Description

NULL pointer dereference in coap_dtls_generate_cookie() in src/coap_openssl.c in OISM libcoap 4.3.5 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted DTLS handshake that triggers SSL_get_SSL_CTX() to return NULL.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-65497 is a denial of service condition on devices and applications using libcoap 4.3.5 with OpenSSL for DTLS. For European organizations, particularly those deploying IoT devices, smart city infrastructure, or industrial control systems that rely on CoAP for lightweight communication, this vulnerability could lead to service outages or degraded performance. Disruptions in critical infrastructure such as energy grids, transportation systems, or healthcare IoT devices could have cascading effects on operational continuity and safety. Additionally, repeated exploitation attempts could be used as part of larger denial of service campaigns targeting network segments. While the vulnerability does not compromise confidentiality or integrity, the availability impact could affect business operations and service reliability. The lack of authentication requirements lowers the barrier for attackers, increasing the risk of opportunistic exploitation. Organizations with large-scale deployments of vulnerable libcoap versions may face increased operational risk until mitigations or patches are applied.

CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumCWE Top 25 (2025): #13OWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Implementation
For any pointers that could have been modified or provided from a function that can return NULL, check the pointer for NULL before use. When working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the check, and unlock when it has finished.
Requirements
Select a programming language that is not susceptible to these issues.
Implementation
Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is non-null before acting upon it.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.7 (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

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 1 Dec 2025, 14:36 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-476

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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