CVE-2025-12736
in OpenHarmony v5.
Executive Summary
CVE-2025-12736 is a medium severity vulnerability affecting appsec. It is classified as CWE-908. Ensure your systems and dependencies are patched immediately to mitigate exposure risks.
Precogs AI Insight
"The underlying mechanism of this vulnerability involves within OpenHarmony v5.0.3, allowing the mishandling of memory allocation boundaries. In a real-world scenario, an attacker could exploit this by trigger a denial of service state, crashing critical operational components. Precogs AI Analysis Engine leverages inter-procedural taint tracking to block malicious interactions before they reach production."
What is this vulnerability?
CVE-2025-12736 is categorized as a critical Code Injection / RCE flaw. Based on our vulnerability intelligence, this issue occurs when the application fails to securely handle untrusted data boundaries.
in OpenHarmony v5.0.3 and prior versions allow a local attacker case sensitive information leak through use of uninitialized resource....
This architectural defect enables adversaries to bypass intended security controls, directly manipulating the application's execution state or data layer. Immediate strategic intervention is required.
Risk Assessment
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| CVSS Base Score | 6.5 (MEDIUM) |
| Vector String | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N |
| Published | March 16, 2026 |
| Last Modified | March 17, 2026 |
| Related CWEs | CWE-908 |
Impact on Systems
✅ Remote Code Execution: Attackers achieve arbitrary command execution within the context of the application server.
✅ Privilege Escalation: Initial code execution can be exploited to pivot and elevate privileges across the network.
✅ Persistent Backdoors: Attackers can bind reverse shells, modify source files, or inject persistent access mechanisms.
How to fix this issue?
Implement the following strategic mitigations immediately to eliminate the attack surface.
1. Remove Dynamic Evaluation Completely eliminate the use of dynamic evaluation functions (eval(), exec(), system()) on untrusted input.
2. Sandboxing If dynamic execution is an absolute business requirement, isolate the execution environment in tightly constrained, non-networked sandboxes (e.g., restricted WebAssembly or isolated containers).
3. Network Segmentation Restrict outbound traffic from the application server (egress filtering) to prevent reverse shell connections.
Vulnerability Signature
// Vulnerable Node.js Execution
const exec = require('child_process').exec;
const user_domain = req.query.domain;
// VULNERABLE: Injecting user input directly into system shell commands
exec('ping -c 4 ' + user_domain, (error, stdout, stderr) =\> \{
res.send(stdout);
\});
// EXPLOIT PAYLOAD: precogs.ai ; cat /etc/passwd
References and Sources
- NVD — CVE-2025-12736
- MITRE — CVE-2025-12736
- CWE-908 — MITRE CWE
- CWE-908 Details
- Application Security Vulnerabilities
Vulnerability Code Signature
Attack Data Flow
| Stage | Detail |
|---|---|
| Source | Untrusted User Input |
| Vector | Input flows through the application logic without sanitization |
| Sink | Execution or Rendering Sink |
| Impact | Application compromise, Logic Bypass, Data Exfiltration |
Vulnerable Code Pattern
# ❌ VULNERABLE: Unsanitized Input Flow
def process_request(request):
user_input = request.GET.get('data')
# Taint sink: processing untrusted data
execute_logic(user_input)
return {"status": "success"}
Secure Code Pattern
# ✅ SECURE: Input Validation & Sanitization
def process_request(request):
user_input = request.GET.get('data')
# Sanitized boundary check
if not is_valid_format(user_input):
raise ValueError("Invalid input format")
sanitized_data = sanitize(user_input)
execute_logic(sanitized_data)
return {"status": "success"}
How Precogs Detects This
Precogs AI Analysis Engine maps untrusted input directly to execution sinks to catch complex application security vulnerabilities.\n