CyberSecBulletin
CVE-2025-64076NVD status: Analyzed

Cbor2: Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound)

CVE-2025-64076 is a high-severity integer underflow (wrap or wraparound) vulnerability in Cbor2 from Agronholm, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5 out of 10. It can be exploited remotely over the network by an unauthenticated attacker, without any action from a user. Affected Cbor2 versions: 5.7.0 and earlier. The record does not name a fixed version, so check the vendor advisory. There is no confirmed exploitation so far. EPSS estimates a 0.49% chance of exploitation within 30 days, which is low compared with other CVEs.

Next patch cycle

High severity with no evidence of exploitation so far.

What to do

  1. Check which version of Cbor2 you run against the affected versions below, and install the vendor's latest release.
  2. Until you can update, restrict network access to the affected service so it is not reachable from untrusted networks.

Affected products and versions

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed in
AgronholmCbor25.7.0 and earlierNot stated

Version data comes from NVD's product matching. Confirm against the vendor advisory before deciding you are unaffected.

How the severity score breaks down

Attack vector
NetworkCan be exploited remotely over a network, including the internet.
Attack complexity
LowNo special conditions are needed; the attack works reliably.
Privileges required
NoneNo account or login is needed.
User interaction
NoneNo action by a victim is required.
Scope
UnchangedImpact stays within the vulnerable component.
Confidentiality
NoneNo data is disclosed.
Integrity
NoneNothing can be modified.
Availability
HighThe component can be taken down completely.

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. Scored by CNA (mitre.org).

Official description

Multiple vulnerabilities exist in cbor2 through version 5.7.0 in the decode_definite_long_string() function of the C extension decoder (source/decoder.c): (1) Integer Underflow Leading to Out-of-Bounds Read (CWE-191, CWE-125): An incorrect variable reference and missing state reset in the chunk processing loop causes buffer_length to not be reset to zero after UTF-8 character consumption. This results in subsequent chunk_length calculations producing negative values (e.g., chunk_length = 65536 - buffer_length), which are passed as signed integers to the read() method, potentially triggering unlimited read operations and resource exhaustion. (2) Memory Leak via Missing Reference Count Release (CWE-401): The main processing loop fails to release Python object references (Py_DECREF) for chunk objects allocated in each iteration. For CBOR strings longer than 65536 bytes, this causes cumulative memory leaks proportional to the payload size, enabling memory exhaustion attacks through repeated processing of large CBOR payloads. Both vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely without authentication by sending specially-crafted CBOR data containing definite-length text strings with multi-byte UTF-8 characters positioned at 65536-byte chunk boundaries. Successful exploitation results in denial of service through process crashes (CBORDecodeEOF exceptions) or memory exhaustion. The vulnerabilities affect all applications using cbor2's C extension to process untrusted CBOR data, including web APIs, IoT data collectors, and message queue processors. Fixed in commit 851473490281f82d82560b2368284ef33cf6e8f9 pushed with released version 5.7.1.

Source: the CVE record as published by its numbering authority, via NVD and CVE.org.

The underlying weakness: Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound)

The product subtracts one value from another, such that the result is less than the minimum allowable integer value, which produces a value that is not equal to the correct result.

More Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound) vulnerabilities (CWE-191)

Timeline

  1. CVE record published.
  2. CISA published its SSVC assessment (exploitation: poc, automatable: no, technical impact: partial).
  3. Record last changed materially (score, affected products, status or references).

References

Technical write-ups (may include proof of concept)

Other vulnerabilities in Cbor2

All Cbor2 vulnerabilities

Recent Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound) vulnerabilities

Spotted an error? Tell us.