CVE-2025-52541
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 · uneditedA DLL hijacking vulnerability in Vivado could allow a local attacker to achieve privilege escalation, potentially resulting in arbitrary code execution.
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 confidenceA DLL hijacking vulnerability in Xilinx Vivado allows a local attacker to load a malicious DLL in place of a legitimate one the application expects, potentially achieving privilege escalation and arbitrary code execution by injecting code that runs with the victim's privileges.
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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify if Xilinx Vivado is installedSearch for the Vivado installation directory - common locations include C:\Xilinx\Vivado or C:\Program Files\Xilinx\Vivado on Windows, or /opt/Xilinx/Vivado on Linux. Check for the presence of Vivado executable files (vivado.exe on Windows, vivado on Linux).Affected if Vivado is found installed on the system
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Determine the installed Vivado versionRun 'vivado -version' from the Vivado installation bin directory, or check the version information of the vivado.exe file via file properties. Compare the version number against any vendor-provided version guidance.Affected if The installed version is older than the patched version provided by Xilinx
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Inspect the Vivado installation directory for suspicious DLLsList all DLL files in the Vivado bin and lib directories. Look for unknown or recently added DLL files that are not part of the standard Vivado installation. Check for DLLs with unusual names or those matching common DLL hijacking targets (e.g., user32.dll, kernel32.dll placed in the application directory).Affected if Unexpected or unauthorized DLL files are present in the Vivado bin or lib directories
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Check DLL search path configurationReview the system PATH environment variable and any Vivado-specific PATH settings. Check if the Vivado installation directory is listed before system directories in PATH, which could allow local DLL loading. Use 'echo %PATH%' on Windows or 'echo $PATH' on Linux to review.Affected if Vivado bin directory appears earlier in PATH than system directories, allowing local DLL loading
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Verify file permissions on the Vivado installation directoryCheck that the Vivado installation directory and its subdirectories have restrictive permissions, allowing only authorized users write access. On Windows, right-click the directory > Properties > Security tab. On Linux, use 'ls -la /path/to/Vivado' to review owner and permissions.Affected if Non-administrator users have write access to the Vivado installation directory, allowing them to place malicious DLLs
A user is affected if Xilinx Vivado is installed and the application directory or its directories in PATH are writable by untrusted users, enabling placement of malicious DLLs for hijacking.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataApply vendor-provided patches when available; in the interim, ensure the Vivado application runs from directories with strict access controls and remove any untrusted DLLs from searchable paths.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-52541 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-52541 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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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