CVE-2025-1244

Description

A command injection flaw was found in the text editor Emacs. It could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary shell commands on a vulnerable system. Exploitation is possible by tricking users into visiting a specially crafted website or an HTTP URL with a redirect.

Statement

To exploit this flaw, an attacker needs to trick a user into visiting a specially crafted website, an HTTP URL with a redirect or in general a custom man URI schemes. In order to exploit this vulnerability a user action is required, limiting the possibility of this issue to be exploited.

Mitigation

There is no an existing or known mitigation for this issue without disabling part of the Emacs core functionality. However, by avoiding opening or view untrusted files, websites, HTTP URLs or other URI resources with Emacs would reduce or prevent the risk of performing this attack successfully.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score8.8N/A8.8
Attack VectorNetworkN/ANetwork
Attack ComplexityLowN/ALow
Privileges RequiredNoneN/ANone
User InteractionRequiredN/ARequired
ScopeUnchangedN/AUnchanged
ConfidentialityHighN/AHigh
Integrity ImpactHighN/AHigh
Availability ImpactHighN/AHigh

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability,Non-Repudiation

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; Read Files or Directories; Modify Files or Directories; Read Application Data; Modify Application Data; Hide Activities

Attackers could execute unauthorized operating system commands, which could then be used to disable the product, or read and modify data for which the attacker does not have permissions to access directly. Since the targeted application is directly executing the commands instead of the attacker, any malicious activities may appear to come from the application or the application's owner.

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Vasilij Schneidermann (CODE WHITE) for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

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