Protection mechanism failure in edk2 - CVE-2025-2296
Published: December 10, 2025
Vulnerability identifier: #VU119803
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4 BT: 4 [CVSS:4.0/AV:P/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Clear]
CVE-ID: CVE-2025-2296
CWE-ID: CWE-693
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows an attacker to bypass Secure Boot protections.
The vulnerability exists due to insufficient implementation of security measures in direct boot mode. If signature of Linux kernel is not in the DB, DxeImageVerification returns EFI_ACCESS_DENIED, however it falls back to the legacy loader allowing to bypass the secure boot mechanism. An attacker with physical access to the system can bypass secure boot feature and load an untrusted image.
Affected software
edk2
Anolis OS
edk2-tools
edk2-aarch64
edk2-loongarch64
edk2-ovmf
edk2-riscv64
edk2-tools-doc
Anolis OS
edk2-tools
edk2-aarch64
edk2-loongarch64
edk2-ovmf
edk2-riscv64
edk2-tools-doc
How to mitigate CVE-2025-2296
Install updates from vendor's website.
edk2 - update to edk2-stable202505
edk2-tools - update to 202402-28
edk2-aarch64 - update to 202402-28
edk2-loongarch64 - update to 202402-28
edk2-ovmf - update to 202402-28
edk2-riscv64 - update to 202402-28
edk2-tools-doc - update to 202402-28
edk2-tools - update to 202402-28
edk2-aarch64 - update to 202402-28
edk2-loongarch64 - update to 202402-28
edk2-ovmf - update to 202402-28
edk2-riscv64 - update to 202402-28
edk2-tools-doc - update to 202402-28