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Fencer Intel
medium 4.0

CVE-2025-25201 json

Improper Validation of Admin Key in PIV Smartcard

published last yr. modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2025-4087

cvss
4.0
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Nitrokey 3 Firmware is the the firmware of Nitrokey 3 USB keys. For release 1.8.0, and test releases with PIV enabled prior to 1.8.0, the PIV application could accept invalid keys for authentication of the admin key. This could lead to compromise of the integrity of the data stored in the application. An attacker without access to the proper administration key would be able to generate new keys and overwrite certificates. Such an attacker would not be able to read-out or extract existing private data, nor would they be able to gain access to cryptographic operations that would normally require PIN-based authentication. The issue is fixed in piv-authenticator 0.3.9, and in Nitrokey's firmware 1.8.1.

Patch / fix

Is CVE-2025-25201 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last yr.

Exploit prediction

0.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Affected products

  • Nitrokey nitrokey-3-firmware

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.