CVE-2025-52885 | GHSL-2025-042: Poppler has Use-After-Free

Poppler ia a library for rendering PDF files, and examining or modifying their structure. A use-after-free (write) vulnerability has been detected in versions Poppler prior to 25.10.0 within the StructTreeRoot class. The issue arises from the use of raw pointers to elements of a `std::vector`, which can lead to dangling pointers when the vector is resized. The vulnerability stems from the way that refToParentMap stores references to `std::vector` elements using raw pointers. These pointers may become invalid when the vector is resized. This vulnerability is a common security problem involving the use of raw pointers to `std::vectors`. Internally, `std::vector `stores its elements in a dynamically allocated array. When the array reaches its capacity and a new element is added, the vector reallocates a larger block of memory and moves all the existing elements to the new location. At this point if any pointers to elements are stored before a resize occurs, they become dangling pointers once the reallocation happens. Version 25.10.0 contains a patch for the issue.

Published: 2025-10-10 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-52885 is rated Low Risk (24.9/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.01%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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-2025-52885

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 2025-10-11 0.01%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-52885

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.1 4.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
Attacker needs local access on the target system.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:N)
No additional preconditions are required beyond normal reachability.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:H)
High confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:H)
High integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:H)
High availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.
Exploit maturity (threat) (E:U)
Unreported: no public PoC, no reported exploitation, and no known simplification tools.
Confidentiality requirement (CR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Integrity requirement (IR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Availability requirement (AR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Modified attack vector (MAV:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Vector (AV).
Modified attack complexity (MAC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Complexity (AC).
Modified attack requirements (MAT:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Requirements (AT).
Modified privileges required (MPR:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Privileges Required (PR).
Modified user interaction (MUI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base User Interaction (UI).
Modified vulnerable system confidentiality impact (MVC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VC metric.
Modified vulnerable system integrity impact (MVI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VI metric.
Modified vulnerable system availability impact (MVA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VA metric.
Modified subsequent system confidentiality impact (MSC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SC metric.
Modified subsequent system integrity impact (MSI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SI metric.
Modified subsequent system availability impact (MSA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SA metric.
Safety (supplemental) (S:X)
Not evaluated.
Automatable (supplemental) (AU:X)
Not evaluated.
Recovery (supplemental) (R:X)
Not evaluated.
Value density (supplemental) (V:X)
Not evaluated.
Vulnerability response effort (supplemental) (RE:X)
Not evaluated.
Provider urgency (supplemental) (U:X)
Not evaluated.
[email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-52885

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-52885

vendor priority summary link
alpine medium CVE-2025-52885: 1 source package rows (poppler); 23 state rows across 5 repos (3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 0, open 23. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2025-52885
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-52885 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (poppler), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 3, resolved 2. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-52885
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-52885
suse high CVE-2025-52885 severity important: SUSE including 64 source package names (2.1.2-3.50:perl-Bootloader-1.6-3.1, 2.1.2-4.24:perl-Bootloader-1.6-3.1, …), 213 product×package rows across 46 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/kvm-os-container, … (46 product lines)): Fixed 171, Known Not Affected 34, First Fixed 8. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-52885/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-52885 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (poppler), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, upstream, xenial): released 6, not-affected 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-52885

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-52885

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-52885

cvelogic Threat Intelligence