Use-After-Free in GNU GRUB Causes DoS via Invalid File Pointer
CVE-2025-54771 Published on November 18, 2025
Grub2: use-after-free in grub_file_close()
A use-after-free vulnerability has been identified in the GNU GRUB (Grand Unified Bootloader). The flaw occurs because the file-closing process incorrectly retains a memory pointer, leaving an invalid reference to a file system structure. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause grub to crash, leading to a Denial of Service. Possible data integrity or confidentiality compromise is not discarded.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2025-54771 can be exploited with local system access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is consided to have a high level of attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be low. considered to have a small impact on confidentiality and integrity and availability.
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public. 8 days later.
Weakness Type
What is a Dangling pointer Vulnerability?
The program dereferences a pointer that contains a location for memory that was previously valid, but is no longer valid. When a program releases memory, but it maintains a pointer to that memory, then the memory might be re-allocated at a later time. If the original pointer is accessed to read or write data, then this could cause the program to read or modify data that is in use by a different function or process. Depending on how the newly-allocated memory is used, this could lead to a denial of service, information exposure, or code execution.
CVE-2025-54771 has been classified to as a Dangling pointer vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2025-54771
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Affected Versions
GNU grub2:- Before and including 2.14 is affected.
Exploit Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.