Is CVE-2025-10990 exploited in the wild?

No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2025-10990 being exploited in the wild.

How severe is CVE-2025-10990?

High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.5, published 27 February 2026.

Which products and versions are affected?

Puppet-Agent 8.8.1-3.el8sat, 8.8.1-3.el9sat; Ruby REXML Before 3.3.9.

Is there a fix for CVE-2025-10990?

No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.

How is CVE-2025-10990 attacked?

It is attacked over the network, in a software library.

Am I affected by CVE-2025-10990?

Check whether you run Puppet-Agent or Ruby REXML at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

CVE-2025-10990: Ruby REXML ReDoS in hex numeric character references

CVE-2025-10990 · Severity: high · CVSS 7.5 · Published 2026-02-27

REXML is a popular Ruby library used for parsing XML data. A flaw in how it handles specific character references allows a remote attacker to crash the application or cause it to become unresponsive by sending a specially crafted XML document. This results in a denial-of-service (DoS) condition, potentially disrupting business operations and service availability for applications relying on this library, including Red Hat Satellite.

Vendors: Puppet, Ruby.

Quick answers

Is CVE-2025-10990 exploited in the wild?: No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2025-10990 being exploited in the wild.
How severe is CVE-2025-10990?: High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.5, published 27 February 2026.
Which products and versions are affected?: Puppet-Agent 8.8.1-3.el8sat, 8.8.1-3.el9sat; Ruby REXML Before 3.3.9.
Is there a fix for CVE-2025-10990?: No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
How is CVE-2025-10990 attacked?: It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
Am I affected by CVE-2025-10990?: Check whether you run Puppet-Agent or Ruby REXML at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

Technical details

A flaw was found in the REXML library's handling of hex numeric character references (&#x...;) within XML documents. The vulnerability is classified as a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) caused by inefficient regular expression complexity (CWE-1333). A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit this by providing a crafted XML document that triggers catastrophic backtracking during regex parsing, leading to excessive CPU consumption and service unavailability. This issue represents an incomplete fix for a previous vulnerability (CVE-2024-49761). Patches have been released by the Ruby REXML maintainers and downstream vendors like Red Hat.

Affected products

Ruby REXML Before 3.3.9
Red Hat Satellite 6.16, 6.17
Puppet puppet-agent 8.8.1-3.el8sat, 8.8.1-3.el9sat

Timeline

2024-10-28: other: Original vulnerability CVE-2024-49761 disclosed
2025-10-08: advisory: Red Hat published security advisory RHSA-2025:17606
2026-02-27: disclosed: NVD published CVE-2025-10990 record

References

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