CVE-2025-9714
Published: September 2, 2025Last modified: December 23, 2025
Description
Uncontrolled recursion in XPath evaluation in libxml2 up to and including version 2.9.14 allows a local attacker to cause a stack overflow via crafted expressions. XPath processing functions `xmlXPathRunEval`, `xmlXPathCtxtCompile`, and `xmlXPathEvalExpr` were resetting recursion depth to zero before making potentially recursive calls. When such functions were called recursively this could allow for uncontrolled recursion and lead to a stack overflow. These functions now preserve recursion depth across recursive calls, allowing recursion depth to be controlled.
Severity score breakdown
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Base score | 5.5 |
| Attack Vector | LOCAL |
| Attack complexity | LOW |
| Privileges required | LOW |
| User interaction | NONE |
| Scope | UNCHANGED |
| Confidentiality | NONE |
| Integrity impact | NONE |
| Availability impact | HIGH |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
Notes
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxslt/-/issues/148
Status
| Product | Release | Package | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpaquita Linux | 23 LTS | libxml2 | Not affected (2.10.3-r2) |
| 25 LTS | libxml2 | Not affected (2.13.8-r0) | |
| Stream | libxml2 | Not affected (2.10.3-r2) | |
| Hardened Containers | 23 LTS | libxml2 | Not affected (2.10.3-r2) |
| 25 LTS | libxml2 | Not affected (2.13.8-r0) | |
| Stream | libxml2 | Not affected (2.10.3-r2) |