CVE-2025-25500
Published: 18 March 2025
Description
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Security Summary
CVE-2025-25500 is a vulnerability in CosmWasm prior to version v2.2.0 that stems from a lack of runtime capability validation, enabling attackers to bypass capability restrictions in blockchains. This flaw, tracked under CWE-284 (Improper Access Control), carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N) and was published on 2025-03-18T14:15:43.493. Affected systems include blockchain platforms leveraging CosmWasm for smart contract execution, where the absence of validation allows contracts to operate without enforced capabilities.
Remote attackers require no privileges or user interaction to exploit this issue over the network with low complexity. By deploying a malicious contract that evades capability checks, they can execute unauthorized actions on the blockchain, such as altering state or performing operations beyond intended permissions, resulting in high integrity impacts without compromising confidentiality or availability.
Advisories reference a GitHub Gist detailing the vulnerability at https://gist.github.com/H3T76/8096a6ff9410f3a6d9a25db1a68ae657#file-cve-2025-25500, which aligns with upgrading to CosmWasm v2.2.0 to address the runtime validation deficiency.
Details
- CWE(s)
Affected Products
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
Why these techniques?
The vulnerability enables remote exploitation of a public-facing blockchain platform (T1190) via malicious contract deployment to bypass capability restrictions, directly facilitating unauthorized actions equivalent to privilege escalation (T1068).