CVE-2025-43556: Integer Overflow Vulnerability in Animate Allowing Arbitrary Code Execution

Overview

The year 2025 has seen a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-43556, surface in versions 24.0.8, 23.0.11 and earlier of the software application Animate. This vulnerability is particularly concerning as it can lead to an integer overflow or wraparound, which in turn could result in the execution of arbitrary code. This execution occurs in the context of the current user, which makes the exploit even more potent as it could potentially compromise the entire system or lead to data leakage. The exploit requires user interaction, specifically, the victim would need to open a malicious file.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-43556
Severity: High (CVSS: 7.8)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: User level
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise and data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Animate | 24.0.8 and earlier
Animate | 23.0.11 and earlier

How the Exploit Works

The exploit takes advantage of an integer overflow or wraparound vulnerability. In computer systems, an integer overflow occurs when an arithmetic operation attempts to create a numeric value that is too large to fit in the available storage space. In the case of CVE-2025-43556, a malicious actor could craft a file that, when opened by a victim, triggers this overflow. This in turn can cause the software to behave unpredictably, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution.

Conceptual Example Code

Below is a conceptual representation of how a malicious file might be crafted. This pseudocode is not meant to be functional but rather to illustrate the general idea:

# Pseudocode
malicious_file = open("exploit.txt", "w")
# String that's too long, leading to integer overflow
long_string = "A" * (2**31)
malicious_payload = "{ 'data': '" + long_string + "' }"
malicious_file.write(malicious_payload)
malicious_file.close()

In this example, a file named “exploit.txt” is created and a string that is too long to be handled by the Animate application is written to it. When this file is opened in Animate, it triggers an integer overflow, leading to the potential for arbitrary code execution.