CVE-2025-7427VulnerabilityPublished 22 Jul 2025Updated 26 Feb 2026

CVE-2025-7427: Arm Development Studio · Uncontrolled Search Path Element

Affects Arm Development StudioSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.9 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.9Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 7% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

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

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

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
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: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on 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 22 Jul 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 2026-10-25.

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

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Arm Development Studio	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-7427, organizations should: 1) Apply official patches or updates from Arm as soon as they become available to fix the DLL search path handling. 2) Restrict local access to systems running Arm Development Studio to trusted personnel only, minimizing the risk of local attackers placing malicious DLLs. 3) Use application whitelisting and endpoint protection solutions that can detect and block unauthorized DLL loading or suspicious file placements. 4) Configure the operating system to use safe DLL search modes, such as setting the SafeDllSearchMode registry key to enabled on Windows, to reduce the risk of DLL hijacking. 5) Educate developers and system administrators about the risks of DLL hijacking and encourage regular audits of development environments for unauthorized files. 6) Employ file integrity monitoring on directories used by Arm Development Studio to detect unexpected changes or additions. 7) Consider running the development environment with least privilege principles, avoiding administrative rights where possible to limit the impact of code execution. These measures collectively reduce the attack surface and help prevent exploitation even before patches are applied.

Description

Uncontrolled Search Path Element in Arm Development Studio before 2025 may allow an attacker to perform a DLL hijacking attack. Successful exploitation could lead to local arbitrary code execution in the context of the user running Arm Development Studio.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-7427 is local arbitrary code execution, which can lead to full compromise of the user environment running Arm Development Studio. Attackers exploiting this vulnerability can execute malicious code with the same privileges as the user, potentially leading to data theft, manipulation of development projects, insertion of malicious code into firmware or software builds, and disruption of development workflows. This could undermine the integrity of embedded systems and products developed using the compromised environment. The vulnerability affects confidentiality by exposing sensitive development data, integrity by allowing unauthorized code execution and modification, and availability by potentially crashing or destabilizing the development environment. Organizations relying on Arm Development Studio for critical embedded system development, especially in sectors like automotive, aerospace, telecommunications, and IoT, face risks of intellectual property theft and supply chain compromise. Although exploitation requires local access, insider threats or attackers who gain initial footholds in development environments could leverage this vulnerability to escalate their control and persist within networks.

CWE-427Uncontrolled Search Path Element (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessOWASP Top 10 A08:2025: Software or Data Integrity Failures (opens in a new tab)
The product uses a fixed or controlled search path to find resources, but one or more locations in that path can be under the control of unintended actors.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Hard-code the search path to a set of known-safe values (such as system directories), or only allow them to be specified by the administrator in a configuration file. Do not allow these settings to be modified by an external party. Be careful to avoid related weaknesses such as CWE-426 and CWE-428.
Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
When invoking other programs, specify those programs using fully-qualified pathnames. While this is an effective approach, code that uses fully-qualified pathnames might not be portable to other systems that do not use the same pathnames.
Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Remove or restrict all environment settings before invoking other programs. This includes the PATH environment variable, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and other settings that identify the location of code libraries, and any application-specific search paths.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Software Supply Chain Security (opens in a new tab)
Infrastructure as Code (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Leveraging/Manipulating Configuration File Search Paths (opens in a new tab)
Search Order Hijacking (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

developer.arm.com/documentation/110691 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Feb 2026, 04:16 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-427

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats