CVE-2025-23165 Denial of service in node
A memory leak in Node.js ReadFileUtf8 binding allows attackers to cause unbounded memory growth and denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2025-23165?
CVE-2025-23165 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in nodejs node, published on 19 May 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In Node.js, the `ReadFileUtf8` internal binding leaks memory due to a corrupted pointer in `uv_fs_s.file`: a UTF-16 path buffer is allocated but subsequently overwritten when the file descriptor is set. This results in an unrecoverable memory leak on every call. Repeated use can cause unbounded memory growth, leading to a denial of service. Impact: * This vulnerability affects APIs relying on `ReadFileUtf8` on Node.js release lines: v20 and v22.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-23165?
2 open source packages ship an affected version, including node and node-min.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
node Bitnami | All versions | 20.19.2, 22.15.1 |
node-min Bitnami | All versions | 20.19.2, 22.15.1 |
How do I fix CVE-2025-23165?
Upgrade node to a fixed version for your release line: 20.19.2 or 22.15.1.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2025-23165 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2025-23165 exists.
Sources
Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2025-23165, AZL-61913, BELL-CVE-2025-23165, BIT-node-2025-23165, BIT-node-min-2025-23165, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-23165 and 5 more.