# CVE-2025-53627: Meshtastic firmware allows forged DMs with no PKC to show up as encrypted

> Attackers can inject spoofed direct messages that appear encrypted by exploiting a silent fallback to legacy encryption, bypassing PKI security guarantees.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 29 Dec 2025
- **Updated:** 29 Dec 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-377p-prwp-4hwf

## What is CVE-2025-53627?

CVE-2025-53627 is a medium-severity vulnerability in meshtastic firmware, published on 29 Dec 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Meshtastic is an open source mesh networking solution. The Meshtastic firmware (starting from version 2.5) introduces asymmetric encryption (PKI) for direct messages, but when the `pki_encrypted` flag is missing, the firmware silently falls back to legacy AES-256-CTR channel encryption. This was an intentional decision to maintain backwards compatibility. However, the end-user applications, like Web app, iOS/Android app, and applications built on top of Meshtastic using the SDK, did not have a way to differentiate between end-to-end encrypted DMs and the legacy DMs. This creates a downgrade attack path where adversaries who know a shared channel key can craft and inject spoofed direct messages that are displayed as if they were PKC encrypted. Users are not given any feedback of whether a direct message was decrypted with PKI or with legacy symmetric encryption, undermining the expected security guarantees of the PKI rollout. Version 2.7.15 fixes this issue.

Weakness: CWE-1287 (Improper Validation of Specified Type of Input)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-53627?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Meshtastic Meshtastic Firmware.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-53627?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-53627 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-53627 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2025-53627 exists.

## Other vulnerabilities in meshtastic firmware

- [CVE-2025-52464](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-52464/): Meshtastic Repeated Public and Private Keypairs (critical 9.5)
- [CVE-2025-55293](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-55293/): Meshtastic allows crafting of specific NodeInfo packets that overwrite any publicKey saved in the NodeDB (critical 9.4)
- [CVE-2025-24797](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-24797/): Meshtastic incorrectly hands malformed packets leads to controlled buffer overflow (critical 9.4)
- [CVE-2025-55292](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-55292/): In Meshtastic, an attacker can spoof licensed amateur flag for a node (high 8.2)
- [CVE-2024-47078](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-47078/): Meshtastic firmware Authentication/Authorization Bypass via MQTT (high 8.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-53627 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-53627 is a medium-severity vulnerability in meshtastic firmware, published on 29 Dec 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2025-53627 exists.

Affected product: meshtastic firmware. 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-2025-53627/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-53627/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-53627
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-53627
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-53627

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-53627/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.