Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2025-46206 is a denial-of-service flaw in Artifex MuPDF’s mutool clean utility. A specially crafted PDF can make the tool recurse indefinitely while processing document outlines, potentially hanging or crashing PDF-processing jobs. It affects MuPDF 1.25.5 and 1.25.6 per the CVE description.
Executive priority
Treat as a near-term availability risk for PDF-processing services, not an emergency unless untrusted PDFs are processed at scale. Prioritize remediation for internet-facing upload workflows and business-critical document pipelines.
Technical view
The issue is CWE-674 uncontrolled recursion in strip_outline(). PDFs with cyclic /Next references in the outline structure can trigger infinite recursion during mutool clean processing. CVSS 3.1 is 6.5: network deliverable, low complexity, no privileges, user interaction required, high availability impact, no confidentiality or integrity impact.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most relevant where MuPDF 1.25.5 or 1.25.6 mutool clean processes untrusted PDFs, such as document conversion, sanitization, ingestion, or automated cleanup pipelines.
Exploitation context
The sources describe crafted-file denial of service, not data theft or code execution. CISA KEV status is false in the provided bundle, and no cited source confirms active exploitation. A public GitHub disclosure is referenced, so defenders should assume technical details are accessible.
Researcher notes
The public record ties the bug to cyclic PDF outline /Next references and an upstream MuPDF commit. The affected range is stated as 1.25.5 and 1.25.6, but the provided bundle does not name a fixed release version.
Mitigation direction
- Identify systems using MuPDF 1.25.5 or 1.25.6, especially mutool clean automation.
- Review Artifex/Ghostscript guidance and apply the upstream fix or supported release when available.
- Avoid processing untrusted PDFs with vulnerable mutool clean versions until remediated.
- Run PDF-processing jobs with resource limits and isolation to reduce service impact.
Validation and detection
- Inventory MuPDF and mutool versions across servers, containers, CI jobs, and document-processing workflows.
- Confirm whether mutool clean is invoked on externally supplied or user-uploaded PDFs.
- Check vendor release notes or the referenced commit for the applied fix.
- Monitor PDF-processing services for hangs, recursion failures, or abnormal resource consumption.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-674: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2025-46206 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 6.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
SSVC decision data
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H2.83.6CISA-ADPVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
6.5MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/Landw-hub/CVE-2025-46206CVE reference, mitre
- https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=708521CVE reference, mitre
- https://cgit.ghostscript.com/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/mupdf.git/commit/?id=0ec7e4d2201bb6df217e01c17396d36297abf9acCVE reference, mitre
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Uncontrolled Recursion
Uncontrolled Recursion represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.