CVE-2025-31498 (GCVE-0-2025-31498)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2025-04-08 13:53 – Updated: 2025-04-08 18:40
VLAI
Title
c-ares has a use-after-free in read_answers()
Summary
c-ares is an asynchronous resolver library. From 1.32.3 through 1.34.4, there is a use-after-free in read_answers() when process_answer() may re-enqueue a query either due to a DNS Cookie Failure or when the upstream server does not properly support EDNS, or possibly on TCP queries if the remote closed the connection immediately after a response. If there was an issue trying to put that new transaction on the wire, it would close the connection handle, but read_answers() was still expecting the connection handle to be available to possibly dequeue other responses. In theory a remote attacker might be able to trigger this by flooding the target with ICMP UNREACHABLE packets if they also control the upstream nameserver and can return a result with one of those conditions, this has been untested. Otherwise only a local attacker might be able to change system behavior to make send()/write() return a failure condition. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.34.5.
Severity
8.3 (High)
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SSVC
Exploitation: none Automatable: no Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator (v2.0.3)
CWE
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
c-ares c-ares Affected: >= 1.32.3, < 1.34.5
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Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

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  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
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