CVE-2025-8844VulnerabilityPublished 11 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-8844: NASM Netwide Assember · NULL Pointer Dereference

Affects NASM Netwide AssemberSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.8 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

4.8Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 18% 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:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P

Base metrics

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: Low
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

Threat metrics

Exploit Maturity: POC

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

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable system 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 through terminal emulation (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., using social engineering techniques to trick a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker requires privileges that provide basic capabilities that are typically limited to settings and resources owned by a single low-privileged user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges has the ability to access only non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system 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 Vulnerable System 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 Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Exploit Maturity: POC: Based on threat intelligence sources each of the following must apply: · Proof-of-concept is publicly available · No knowledge of reported attempts to exploit this vulnerability · No knowledge of publicly available solutions used to simplify attempts to exploit the vulnerability

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 11 Aug 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 2026-10-26.

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

To mitigate CVE-2025-8844, European organizations should: 1) Avoid using NASM version 2.17rc0 in production or critical development environments until an official patch or fixed version is released. 2) Restrict local access to systems running NASM to trusted users only, minimizing the risk of local exploitation. 3) Monitor and audit user activities on development and build servers to detect any abnormal process crashes or attempts to exploit NASM. 4) Implement strict access controls and use sandboxing or containerization for build environments to isolate NASM processes and limit the impact of potential crashes. 5) Stay updated with NASM vendor announcements and apply patches promptly once available. 6) Consider using earlier stable versions of NASM that are not affected by this vulnerability if feasible. 7) Incorporate NASM usage into security assessments and penetration testing to identify potential exploitation paths in local environments.

Description

A vulnerability was determined in NASM Netwide Assember 2.17rc0. This vulnerability affects the function parse_smacro_template of the file preproc.c. The manipulation leads to null pointer dereference. Attacking locally is a requirement. The exploit has been disclosed to the public and may be used.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-8844 is primarily limited to denial of service conditions on systems running NASM 2.17rc0. NASM is a widely used assembler in software development, embedded systems, and security research, but it is typically a development tool rather than a production runtime component. Therefore, the direct impact on operational infrastructure is limited. However, organizations relying on NASM for building critical software or firmware could experience disruptions if local attackers exploit this vulnerability to crash build processes or development environments. In multi-user systems or shared development environments, this could lead to productivity loss or temporary denial of service. Since exploitation requires local access, the threat is more relevant in environments where untrusted users have shell or local access, such as shared servers, development workstations, or compromised user accounts. The vulnerability does not allow remote exploitation or privilege escalation, so its impact on confidentiality and integrity is minimal. Nonetheless, organizations should consider the risk in environments with multiple users or where NASM is part of automated build pipelines.

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 11 Aug 2025, 12:02 UTC

Technical details

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