CVE-2025-54489
Publication date 25 August 2025
Last updated 28 August 2025
Ubuntu priority
Description
A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the MFER parsing functionality of The Biosig Project libbiosig 3.9.0 and Master Branch (35a819fa). A specially crafted MFER file can lead to arbitrary code execution. An attacker can provide a malicious file to trigger this vulnerability.This vulnerability manifests on line 8970 of biosig.c on the current master branch (35a819fa), when the Tag is 63: else if (tag==63) { uint8_t tag2=255, len2=255; count = 0; while ((count<len) && !(FlagInfiniteLength && len2==0 && tag2==0)){ curPos += ifread(&tag2,1,1,hdr); curPos += ifread(&len2,1,1,hdr); if (VERBOSE_LEVEL==9) fprintf(stdout,"MFER: tag=%3i chan=%2i len=%-4i tag2=%3i len2=%3i curPos=%i %li count=%4i\n",tag,chan,len,tag2,len2,curPos,iftell(hdr),(int)count); if (FlagInfiniteLength && len2==0 && tag2==0) break; count += (2+len2); curPos += ifread(&buf,1,len2,hdr); Here, the number of bytes read is not the Data Length decoded from the current frame in the file (`len`) but rather is a new length contained in a single octet read from the same input file (`len2`). Despite this, a stack-based buffer overflow condition can still occur, as the destination buffer is still `buf`, which has a size of only 128 bytes, while `len2` can be as large as 255.
Status
| Package | Ubuntu Release | Status |
|---|---|---|
| biosig | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Needs evaluation
|
| 25.10 questing |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
Patch details
| Package | Patch details |
|---|---|
| biosig |
Severity score breakdown
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Base score |
9.8 · Critical
|
| Attack vector | Network |
| Attack complexity | Low |
| Privileges required | None |
| User interaction | None |
| Scope | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | High |
| Integrity impact | High |
| Availability impact | High |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |