# CVE-2025-29917: Suricata decode_base64: signature can do large memory allocation

> Attackers can cause excessive memory allocation leading to denial of service by crafting signatures with specific base64 decoding settings in Suricata.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.2 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 10 Apr 2025
- **Updated:** 11 Apr 2025
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2025-29917, GHSA-x8c9-8553-j9px, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-29917

## What is CVE-2025-29917?

CVE-2025-29917 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Oisf Suricata, published on 10 Apr 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Suricata is a network Intrusion Detection System, Intrusion Prevention System and Network Security Monitoring engine. The bytes setting in the decode_base64 keyword is not properly limited. Due to this, signatures using the keyword and setting can cause large memory allocations of up to 4 GiB per thread. This vulnerability is fixed in 7.0.9.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-29917?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Oisf Suricata.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-29917?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2025-29917 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-29917 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Oisf Suricata

- [CVE-2023-35853](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-35853/): Code injection in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2021-37592](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-37592/): Other in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2018-10244](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-10244/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2026-94083](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-94083/): Memory corruption in Suricata (critical 9.4)
- [CVE-2026-94084](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-94084/): Use after free in Suricata (critical 9.4)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-29917 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-29917 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Oisf Suricata, published on 10 Apr 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-29917 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Oisf Suricata. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-29917/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-29917/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-29917
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-29917
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-29917

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-29917/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.