VulnerabilityPublished 18 Dec 2025Updated 19 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-65562: free5gc · Improper Validation of Array Index

Affects free5gcSource 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: 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 46% 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 18 Dec 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
Gogithub.com/free5gc/free5gc`pkg:golang/github.com/free5gc/free5gc`Other threats	Affected =4.1.0	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

Monitor free5GC project repositories and security advisories closely for official patches addressing CVE-2025-65562 and apply them promptly once available.
Implement strict input validation on PFCP messages at the network edge or within the UPF to detect and reject anomalous SEID values before processing.
Employ runtime protections such as Go language panic recovery mechanisms and process supervision to automatically restart the UPF service upon crashes, minimizing downtime.
Restrict network access to PFCP interfaces using firewall rules and network segmentation to limit exposure to untrusted sources.
Deploy anomaly detection systems to monitor PFCP traffic patterns and alert on suspicious session deletion requests with abnormal SEID values.
Conduct regular security testing and fuzzing of PFCP message handling to identify similar vulnerabilities proactively.
Consider deploying redundant UPF instances with load balancing to ensure service continuity in case of individual component failure.
Collaborate with vendors and open-source communities to contribute patches and share threat intelligence related to this vulnerability. These targeted measures go beyond generic advice by focusing on protocol-specific validation, runtime resilience, and network-level protections tailored to free5GC UPF environments.

Description

The free5GC UPF suffers from a lack of bounds checking on the SEID when processing PFCP Session Deletion Requests. An unauthenticated remote attacker can send a request with a very large SEID (e.g., 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) that causes an integer conversion/underflow in LocalNode.DeleteSess() / LocalNode.Sess() when a uint64 SEID is converted to int and used in index arithmetic. This leads to a negative index into n.sess and a Go runtime panic, resulting in a denial of service (UPF crash). The issue has been reproduced on free5GC v4.1.0 with crashes observed in the session lookup/deletion path in internal/pfcp/node.go; other versions may also be affected. No authentication is required.

Impact

For European organizations, particularly telecom operators and 5G service providers deploying free5GC as part of their 5G core network infrastructure, this vulnerability poses a substantial risk to network availability. A successful attack can crash the UPF, interrupting user data traffic and causing service outages that degrade customer experience and potentially violate service level agreements. Given the critical role of UPF in routing and forwarding user plane data, prolonged or repeated crashes could lead to widespread network instability. This may also impact enterprise customers relying on 5G connectivity for critical applications, including IoT, industrial automation, and emergency services. The disruption could have cascading effects on dependent services and increase operational costs due to incident response and recovery efforts. Additionally, the unauthenticated nature of the exploit increases the attack surface, as attackers do not need privileged access or user credentials. While no known exploits are currently in the wild, the high CVSS score and ease of exploitation warrant immediate attention to prevent potential attacks. European regulators and network operators focused on 5G security should prioritize addressing this vulnerability to maintain network resilience and trust.

CWE-129Improper Validation of Array Index (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighOWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product uses untrusted input when calculating or using an array index, but the product does not validate or incorrectly validates the index to ensure the index references a valid position within the array.
Architecture and Design · Input Validation
Use an input validation framework such as Struts or the OWASP ESAPI Validation API. Note that using a framework does not automatically address all input validation problems; be mindful of weaknesses that could arise from misusing the framework itself (CWE-1173).
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Requirements · Language Selection
Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
SQL Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention in Java (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
Overflow Buffers (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

github.com/free5gc/free5gc/issues/731 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 25 Dec 2025, 19:56 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-129

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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