Bug 2403224 (CVE-2025-52885)

Summary: CVE-2025-52885 poppler: Use-After-Free in StructTreeRoot class
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
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Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedKeywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A use-after-free vulnerability has been identified in Poppler’s StructTreeRoot class when processing specially crafted PDF documents. An attacker could exploit this flaw by persuading a user to open a malicious PDF file, or by placing such a file on a share that is later previewed, causing the application to reference freed memory. This can lead to unexpected behavior in the context of the application handling the PDF.
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Bug Depends On: 2403483, 2403484, 2403486, 2403485    
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-10-10 23:01:38 UTC 
Poppler ia a library for rendering PDF files, and examining or modifying their structure. A use-after-free (write) vulnerability has been detected in versions Poppler prior to 25.10.0 within the StructTreeRoot class. The issue arises from the use of raw pointers to elements of a `std::vector`, which can lead to dangling pointers when the vector is resized. The vulnerability stems from the way that refToParentMap stores references to `std::vector` elements using raw pointers. These pointers may become invalid when the vector is resized. This vulnerability is a common security problem involving the use of raw pointers to `std::vectors`. Internally, `std::vector `stores its elements in a dynamically allocated array. When the array reaches its capacity and a new element is added, the vector reallocates a larger block of memory and moves all the existing elements to the new location. At this point if any pointers to elements are stored before a resize occurs, they become dangling pointers once the reallocation happens. Version 25.10.0 contains a patch for the issue.