Overview
The cybersecurity landscape is ever-evolving, and vulnerabilities continue to emerge. The latest in this series is the CVE-2025-49560, affecting Substance3D – Viewer versions 0.25 and earlier. This vulnerability is a Heap-based Buffer Overflow that could potentially result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user.
This vulnerability is critical as it exposes users to potential system compromise and data leakage, posing significant risks to personal and corporate security. The exploitation of this issue requires user interaction, requiring victims to open a malicious file. As such, it is imperative that users and system administrators understand this vulnerability and apply necessary mitigations.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-49560
Severity: High (CVSS score: 7.8)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Impact: System compromise and potential data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Substance3D – Viewer | versions 0.25 and earlier
How the Exploit Works
Heap-based Buffer Overflow vulnerabilities typically occur when an application writes more data to a block of allocated memory (heap) than it was intended to hold. In the case of CVE-2025-49560, when a user opens a malicious file with Substance3D – Viewer, it triggers an overflow of the buffer, corrupting the heap data structure.
The corrupted heap can then be manipulated by the attacker to execute arbitrary code. This code runs in the context of the current user, which means if the user has administrative privileges, the attacker could potentially take full control of the system.
Conceptual Example Code
The following pseudocode gives a conceptual idea of how the vulnerability might be exploited. Here, the “malicious_file” represents a file crafted in such a way to trigger the buffer overflow.
# Open the malicious file with Substance3D - Viewer
substance3d_viewer.open("malicious_file")
# The malicious file triggers a buffer overflow, corrupting the heap
# The corrupted heap allows the attacker to execute arbitrary code
execute_arbitrary_code()It is important to note that this is a conceptual example and actual exploit code may vary greatly. Remember, the best defense against this and similar vulnerabilities is to keep your systems and applications updated, apply vendor-provided patches promptly, and use security tools such as a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) as temporary mitigation measures.
