CVE-2025-4945
Description
A flaw was found in the cookie parsing logic of the libsoup HTTP library, used in GNOME applications and other software. The vulnerability arises when processing the expiration date of cookies, where a specially crafted value can trigger an integer overflow. This may result in undefined behavior, allowing an attacker to bypass cookie expiration logic, causing persistent or unintended cookie behavior. The issue stems from improper validation of large integer inputs during date arithmetic operations within the cookie parsing routines.
Statement
The Red Hat Product Security team has assessed the severity of this vulnerability as Low. This assessment is based on the fact that successful exploitation requires an attacker to control or manipulate the expiration date of cookies sent from a malicious or compromised HTTP server. Additionally, the consequences of a successful attack are limited in scope affecting only the handling of cookie lifetimes within the local client instance, with no direct impact on system integrity, data confidentiality, or availability.
Mitigation
To mitigate the risk associated with this libsoup vulnerability, Red Hat recommends avoiding interactions between client applications using the libsoup library and untrusted or compromised HTTP servers until a patched version of libsoup is deployed. Users and administrators should monitor their systems for suspicious HTTP activity and apply vendor updates as soon as a fix becomes available to prevent manipulation of cookie expiration logic that could lead to unexpected behavior or policy circumvention.
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 Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 3.7 | N/A | 3.7 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | High |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | Low | N/A | Low |
| Availability Impact | None | N/A | None |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Instability
This weakness can generally lead to undefined behavior and therefore crashes. When the calculated result is used for resource allocation, this weakness can cause too many (or too few) resources to be allocated, possibly enabling crashes if the product requests more resources than can be provided.
Integrity
Technical Impact: Modify Memory
If the value in question is important to data (as opposed to flow), simple data corruption has occurred. Also, if the overflow/wraparound results in other conditions such as buffer overflows, further memory corruption may occur.
Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control
Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism
This weakness can sometimes trigger buffer overflows, which can be used to execute arbitrary code. This is usually outside the scope of the product's implicit security policy.
Availability,Other
Technical Impact: Alter Execution Logic; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)
If the overflow/wraparound occurs in a loop index variable, this could cause the loop to terminate at the wrong time - too early, too late, or not at all (i.e., infinite loops). With too many iterations, some loops could consume too many resources such as memory, file handles, etc., possibly leading to a crash or other DoS.
Access Control
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
If integer values are used in security-critical decisions, such as calculating quotas or allocation limits, integer overflows can be used to cause an incorrect security decision.
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank fouzhe for reporting this issue.
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