CVE-2025-4820 | Incorrect congestion window growth by optimistic ACK

Impact Cloudflare quiche was discovered to be vulnerable to incorrect congestion window growth, which could cause it to send data at a rate faster than the path might actually support. An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit the vulnerability by first completing a handshake and initiating a congestion-controlled data transfer towards itself. Then, it could manipulate the victim's congestion control state by sending ACK frames exercising an opportunistic ACK attack; see RFC 9000 Section 21.4. The victim could grow the congestion window beyond typical expectations and allow more bytes in flight than the path might really support. Patches quiche 0.24.4 is the earliest version containing the fix for this issue.

Published: 2025-06-18 Last update: 2025-11-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-4820 is rated Moderate Risk (48.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.86%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-4820

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-04-14 0.27% 0.86% +0.60%
2 2026-01-12 0.21% 0.27% +0.06%
3 2025-11-21 0.21%

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-4820

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
3.9 1.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-4820

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-4820

vendor priority summary link
alpine CVE-2025-4820: 1 source package rows (dnsdist); 2 state rows across 2 repos (3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 2, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2025-4820

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-4820

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
cloudflare quiche < 0.24.4 cpe:2.3:a:cloudflare:quiche:*:*:*:*:*:rust:*:*

References for CVE-2025-4820

cvelogic Threat Intelligence