Link Following (Symlink)Weakness · CWE-59

CVE-2025-41668

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-07-08
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
94/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable 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
A low privileged remote attacker with file access can replace a critical file or folder used by the service security-profile to get read, write and execute access to any file on the device.

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 · moderate confidence

A low-privileged remote attacker with file access can replace a critical file or folder used by the service's security-profile mechanism. This file replacement allows the attacker to gain arbitrary read, write, and execute access to any file on the device, effectively bypassing security controls through improper validation of file integrity and origin.

MitigationImplement strict file integrity verification (e.g., cryptographic checksums/signatures) for critical security-profile files before use, enforce least-privilege file permissions, and validate file paths to prevent path traversal and unauthorized replacement.

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

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
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/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. Identify security-profile mechanism
    Review system documentation or enumerate running services to identify any security-profile, security-policy, or security-context mechanism that loads files or configurations at runtime.
    Affected if A security-profile mechanism exists that loads files from locations writable by non-privileged users.
  2. Locate critical security files
    Identify files or folders used by the security-profile mechanism (check configuration files, runtime directories, or service-specific paths in documentation).
    Affected if Critical files used by the security-profile mechanism are stored in directories with weak access controls.
  3. Check file permissions
    Use file system permission tools (e.g., ls -la, icacls, or get-acl) to examine write permissions on identified security-profile files and their parent directories.
    Affected if Low-privileged or remote attacker can write to files or directories used by the security-profile mechanism.
  4. Verify file integrity checks
    Inspect whether the service validates file integrity through checksums, signatures, or cryptographic verification before loading security-profile files.
    Affected if No file integrity or origin verification is performed before the security-profile files are loaded and used.

Your environment is affected if you run a service with a security-profile mechanism that loads files from locations accessible to low-privileged users without verifying file integrity or origin.

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

Implement strict file integrity verification (e.g., cryptographic checksums/signatures) for critical security-profile files before use, enforce least-privilege file permissions, and validate file paths to prevent path traversal and unauthorized replacement.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
34.0 hours of engineering $6,000
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-41668 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

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-2025-41668 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data