Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2025-50420 is a denial-of-service issue in Poppler’s pdfseparate utility. A crafted PDF can trigger infinite recursion, potentially crashing or hanging processing. Business impact is mainly service disruption where PDF splitting is exposed through user-upload workflows or automated document pipelines.
Executive priority
Treat as a moderate availability risk. Prioritize internet-facing or business-critical PDF workflows first, because disruption can affect document intake, conversion, or customer-facing services. Confidentiality and integrity impact are not indicated by the CVSS data.
Technical view
The issue is reported in freedesktop Poppler v25.04.0, specifically pdfseparate. It is classified as CWE-674, uncontrolled recursion. CVSS 3.1 is 6.5: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges, user interaction required, and high availability impact.
Likely exposure
Systems are most exposed if they run Poppler pdfseparate on PDFs supplied by users, partners, email, web uploads, or batch ingestion. The source bundle does not provide package-level CPEs or downstream distribution status.
Exploitation context
The CVE is not listed as CISA KEV in the provided data. A public GitHub reference is listed, but the bundle does not establish active exploitation in the wild. Exploitation requires a crafted PDF to be processed by the vulnerable utility.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited. The CVE record names Poppler v25.04.0 and pdfseparate, but structured affected product data is incomplete. No authoritative patch version is included in the provided sources, so remediation should be tied to vendor or distribution advisories.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory systems using Poppler pdfseparate, especially document-processing services.
- Check freedesktop Poppler and operating-system vendor guidance for fixed versions.
- Restrict untrusted PDF processing where possible until vendor guidance is applied.
- Use resource limits or job isolation for PDF-processing workers.
Validation and detection
- Identify installed Poppler versions and confirm whether v25.04.0 is present.
- Review services that invoke pdfseparate on externally supplied PDFs.
- Check vendor advisories or package changelogs for CVE-2025-50420 coverage.
- Monitor PDF-processing jobs for hangs, recursion crashes, or abnormal resource use.
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-2025-50420 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-2025-50420CVE 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.