CVE-2025-7425 is a high-severity use-after-free vulnerability identified in the libxslt library used within Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS). The flaw arises from improper modification of internal attributes—specifically the attribute type (atype) and flags—during the processing of XSLT functions such as key(). These functions generate tree fragments, and the corruption of internal memory management prevents the proper cleanup of ID attributes. Consequently, the system may access memory that has already been freed, leading to heap corruption or system crashes. This vulnerability does not require user interaction or privileges to exploit but does require local access (AV:L) and has a high attack complexity (AC:H). The scope is changed (S:C), indicating that the vulnerability can affect resources beyond the initially vulnerable component. The impact affects integrity and availability, allowing attackers to cause heap corruption that could potentially be leveraged for further exploitation or denial of service. No known exploits are currently in the wild, and no patches have been linked yet, but the vulnerability is published and assigned a CVSS score of 7.8, reflecting its seriousness.

For European organizations running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 ELS, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to system stability and security. The use-after-free condition can lead to application crashes or heap corruption, potentially disrupting critical services and causing denial of service. Since RHEL 7 ELS is often deployed in enterprise environments for legacy support, including financial institutions, government agencies, and industrial control systems, exploitation could impact business continuity and data integrity. The requirement for local access limits remote exploitation but insider threats or compromised user accounts could leverage this flaw. Additionally, the changed scope suggests that exploitation might affect other system components, increasing the risk of broader system compromise. Given the extended lifecycle support nature of the product, many organizations may still rely on it for legacy applications, making timely mitigation crucial to avoid operational disruptions and security breaches.

Organizations should prioritize updating libxslt to a patched version once available from Red Hat's official repositories. Until patches are released, mitigating risk involves restricting local access to trusted users only, employing strict access controls and monitoring for unusual activity on systems running RHEL 7 ELS. Implementing application whitelisting and sandboxing for processes utilizing libxslt can reduce exploitation potential. Regularly auditing and limiting the use of XSLT functions that trigger tree fragment creation, such as key(), can minimize exposure. Additionally, organizations should enhance logging and monitoring to detect crashes or memory corruption symptoms indicative of exploitation attempts. Where feasible, consider migrating critical workloads to more current supported operating system versions to benefit from improved security and support. Finally, coordinate with Red Hat support channels for timely updates and advisories related to this vulnerability.