dbcve.org
SolarisOperating system · Oracle

CVE-2025-21551

MEDIUM · 6.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-01-21
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
62/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris product of Oracle Systems (component: File system). The supported version that is affected is 11. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows high privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle Solaris executes to compromise Oracle Solaris. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized creation, deletion or modification access to critical data or all Oracle Solaris accessible data and unauthorized ability to cause a hang or frequently repeatable crash (complete DOS) of Oracle Solaris. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 6.0 (Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H).

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

A file system vulnerability in Oracle Solaris 11 allows high-privileged local attackers to unauthorizedly modify critical data or cause a complete denial of service (hang or crash). The attack requires local access and high-level privileges, with integrity and availability impacts but no confidentiality loss.

MitigationApply Oracle's security patches for CVE-2025-21551 for Oracle Solaris 11. Restrict high-privileged access to Solaris systems and monitor for unauthorized file system modifications.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
SolarisOperating system
Affected:= 11

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Confirm Oracle Solaris 11 version
    Run 'uname -a' or 'cat /etc/release' to identify the exact Oracle Solaris version installed
    Affected if The system is running Oracle Solaris 11 (specifically version 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, or any 11.x variant)
  2. Identify active file system configuration
    Run 'mount' or 'df -T' to list mounted file systems and their types in use on the system
    Affected if Any ZFS, UFS, or other file system volume is mounted and accessible to high-privileged local users
  3. Audit high-privileged local user accounts
    Check /etc/passwd for users with UID 0 (root) or membership in privileged groups such as 'root', 'sysadmin', or 'wheel' using 'getent passwd' and 'groups <username>'
    Affected if Multiple high-privileged local accounts exist beyond the primary administrator, increasing attack surface
  4. Review file system permissions and ownership
    Inspect critical file system paths (such as /, /usr, /etc, /var) using 'ls -la' to verify ownership and permissions are not overly permissive
    Affected if File system directories or files have unexpected ownership or weak permissions allowing unauthorized modification
  5. Check for unauthorized file system modifications
    Compare current file checksums or timestamps on critical system files against a known-good baseline using 'sum', 'md5sum', or 'ls -la'
    Affected if Critical system files show unexpected modification dates or checksums differing from expected values

A system is affected if it runs any Oracle Solaris 11.x version and has high-privileged local user access that could exploit the file system vulnerability to modify data or cause denial of service.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply Oracle's security patches for CVE-2025-21551 for Oracle Solaris 11. Restrict high-privileged access to Solaris systems and monitor for unauthorized file system modifications.

Fix this in Solaris Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
15.0 hours of engineering $2,560
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-21551 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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