CVE-2025-57321: Prototype Pollution Vulnerability in magix-combine-ex

Overview

This blog post delves into CVE-2025-57321, a critical vulnerability that affects all versions up to 1.2.10 of the magix-combine-ex software. This vulnerability, a form of prototype pollution, allows malicious actors to inject harmful properties into Object.prototype, potentially leading to a denial of service (DoS) situation at the very least.
Considering the severity and potential implications of this vulnerability, it is crucial for cybersecurity professionals and stakeholders in organizations that use magix-combine-ex to understand the nature of CVE-2025-57321, what makes it a threat, and the steps that can be taken to mitigate its potential impact.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-57321
Severity: Critical (CVSS: 9.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: Denial of Service, potential system compromise, and data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

magix-combine-ex | Thru 1.2.10

How the Exploit Works

The exploit takes advantage of a prototype pollution vulnerability in the util-deps.addFileDepend function of magix-combine-ex. Prototype pollution is an attack where an attacker manipulates the prototype of a JavaScript object, which can then propagate to all objects of the polluted prototype.
In this case, the attacker can inject harmful properties into Object.prototype, causing an unpredictable application behavior, or potentially a DoS. The attack can be performed remotely over a network, without any user interaction or special privileges.

Conceptual Example Code

Here is a conceptual example, in pseudocode, of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability:

// Attacker sends a JSON payload with a prototype property
var malicious_payload = {
'__proto__': {
'polluted': 'Attack Successful!'
}
}
// The vulnerable function is called with the malicious payload
util-deps.addFileDepend(malicious_payload);
// All objects now have the polluted property, leading to unpredictable behaviour
console.log({}.polluted); // Outputs: 'Attack Successful!'

This example illustrates how an attacker might use a malicious payload to pollute the prototype and cause a DoS or potentially compromise the system. It is important to note that this is a simplified example and actual exploits may be more complex.