CVE-2025-9714

MEDIUM

libxml2 <= 2.9.14 - Uncontrolled Recursion in XPath Evaluation

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

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.

Scores

CVSS v3 6.2
EPSS 0.0014
EPSS Percentile 4.0%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact partial

Details

CWE
CWE-674
Status published
Products (9)
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.10.0
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.12.7+dfsg+really2.9.14-0.4ubuntu0.3
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.9.1+dfsg1-3ubuntu4.13+esm9
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.9.10+dfsg-5ubuntu0.20.04.10+esm2
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.9.13+dfsg-1ubuntu0.9
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.9.14+dfsg-1.3ubuntu3.5
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.9.3+dfsg1-1ubuntu0.7+esm10
libxml2/libxml2 < 2.9.4+dfsg1-6.1ubuntu1.9+esm5
xmlsoft/libxml2 < 2.10.0
Published Sep 10, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026