CVE-2025-9714
Unknown Unknown - Not Provided
BaseFortify

Publication date: 2025-09-10

Last updated on: 2025-11-03

Assigner: Canonical Ltd.

Description
Uncontrolled recursion in XPath evaluation in libxml2 up to and including version 2.9.14 allows a local attacker to cause a stack overflow via crafted expressions. XPath processing functions `xmlXPathRunEval`, `xmlXPathCtxtCompile`, and `xmlXPathEvalExpr` were resetting recursion depth to zero before making potentially recursive calls. When such functions were called recursively this could allow for uncontrolled recursion and lead to a stack overflow. These functions now preserve recursion depth across recursive calls, allowing recursion depth to be controlled.
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Meta Information
Published
2025-09-10
Last Modified
2025-11-03
Generated
2026-06-16
AI Q&A
2025-09-10
EPSS Evaluated
2026-06-15
NVD
CVE-2025-9714
Affected Vendors & Products
Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
xmlsoft libxml2 to 2.10.0 (exc)
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-674 The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.
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Executive Summary

This vulnerability is an uncontrolled recursion issue in the XPath evaluation functions of libxml2 up to version 2.9.14. Specifically, certain XPath processing functions reset recursion depth incorrectly, which allows recursive calls to exceed the intended limit. This can cause a stack overflow when processing crafted XPath expressions.

Impact Analysis

An attacker with local access can exploit this vulnerability to cause a stack overflow, potentially leading to a denial of service (application crash) on systems using vulnerable versions of libxml2. There is no indication of confidentiality or integrity impact, but availability can be affected.

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