Cyber Posture

CVE-2025-69258

CriticalPublic PoC

Published: 08 January 2026

Published
08 January 2026
Modified
15 January 2026
KEV Added
—
Patch
—
CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0063 70.4th percentile
Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Description

A LoadLibraryEX vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex Central could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to load an attacker-controlled DLL into a key executable, leading to execution of attacker-supplied code under the context of SYSTEM on affected installations.

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match
prevent

Directly remediates the LoadLibraryEX vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex Central by requiring timely patching to fix the flaw enabling malicious DLL loading and arbitrary code execution.

SC-7 Boundary Protection good match
prevent

Monitors and controls communications at system boundaries to deny unauthenticated remote network access to the vulnerable service, blocking the primary attack vector.

SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity partial match
preventdetect

Enforces software integrity verification prior to execution, detecting and preventing the loading of attacker-controlled malicious DLLs into key executables.

Security SummaryAI

CVE-2025-69258 is a LoadLibraryEX vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex Central, published on 2026-01-08. It affects installations of this security management platform and has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), with associated CWEs including CWE-120 (Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input), CWE-290 (Authentication Bypass by Spoofing), and CWE-346 (Origin Validation Error).

An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability over the network with low complexity and no user interaction required. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to load a malicious DLL into a key executable, resulting in arbitrary code execution under the SYSTEM context on affected installations, potentially granting full compromise of the host.

Trend Micro has published security advisories detailing the issue and mitigation steps, available at https://success.trendmicro.com/en-US/solution/KA-0022071 and https://success.trendmicro.com/ja-JP/solution/KA-0022081. Additional analysis is provided by Tenable Research at https://www.tenable.com/security/research/tra-2026-01. Security practitioners should consult these for patch availability and workaround guidance.

Details

CWE(s)
CWE-120CWE-290CWE-346

Affected Products

trendmicro
apex central
2019

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
T1055.001 Dynamic-link Library Injection Stealth
Adversaries may inject dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) into processes in order to evade process-based defenses as well as possibly elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

Unauthenticated remote attacker exploits public-facing application vulnerability (T1190) to load malicious DLL into privileged process for SYSTEM-level RCE (T1068, T1055.001).

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

References