Buffer overflow in Gnu Grub2

CVE-2025-0686

A flaw was found in grub2. When performing a symlink lookup from a romfs filesystem, grub's romfs filesystem module uses user-controlled parameters from the filesystem geometry to determine the internal buffer size, however, it improperly checks for integer overflows. A maliciously crafted filesystem may lead some of those buffer size calculations to overflow, causing it to perform a grub_malloc() operation with a smaller size than expected. As a result, the grub_romfs_read_symlink() may cause out-of-bounds writes when the calling grub_disk_read() function. This issue may be leveraged to corrupt grub's internal critical data and can result in arbitrary code execution by-passing secure boot protections.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

EPSS: 0.003 (17.7th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.4 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-0686?
CVE-2025-0686 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Gnu Grub2, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 6.4/10. Published 2025-03-03.
How severe is CVE-2025-0686?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.4 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-0686 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.