CVE-2025-9230
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 · uneditedIssue summary: An application trying to decrypt CMS messages encrypted using password based encryption can trigger an out-of-bounds read and write. Impact summary: This out-of-bounds read may trigger a crash which leads to Denial of Service for an application. The out-of-bounds write can cause a memory corruption which can have various consequences including a Denial of Service or Execution of attacker-supplied code. Although the consequences of a successful exploit of this vulnerability could be severe, the probability that the attacker would be able to perform it is low. Besides, password based (PWRI) encryption support in CMS messages is very rarely used. For that reason the issue was assessed as Moderate severity according to our Security Policy. The FIPS modules in 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as the CMS implementation is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
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 analysisThe code reads past the end (or before the start) of a buffer, returning memory that was never meant to be exposed. Attackers use it to leak secrets like keys or to defeat memory-protection defences. Remediation is validating indices and lengths before every read.
General guidance for the out-of-bounds read class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
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
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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.
dbcve · scopedOpenSSL 3.5.1 or later (or latest patch release in your OpenSSL 3.x stable branch)
- 1. Identify your current OpenSSL version by running 'openssl version' or 'openssl version -a'
- 2. Check if your system uses the non-FIPS OpenSSL version (this vulnerability affects non-FIPS versions of OpenSSL 3.0-3.5)
- 3. Update your operating system's package manager to get the latest security patches
- 4. For source builds, download OpenSSL 3.5.1 or later from https://openssl-library.org/source/
- 5. After upgrading, verify the new version with 'openssl version'
- 6. Test that any CMS decryption functionality using password-based encryption works correctly with the patched version
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-9230 — 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- github.com
- github.com
- github.com
- github.com
- github.com
- github.com
- github.openssl.org
- github.openssl.org
- openssl-library.org
- www.openwall.com
- lists.debian.org
- cert-portal.siemens.com
- cert-portal.siemens.com
- cert-portal.siemens.com
- cert-portal.siemens.com
- cert-portal.siemens.com
- cert-portal.siemens.com
- cert-portal.siemens.com
- nvd.nist.gov
Practitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-9230 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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