Critical [CVE-2025-49796] type confusion leads to denial of service (dos)

A vulnerability was found in libxml2. Processing certain sch:name elements from the input XML file can trigger a memory corruption issue.

This flaw allows an attacker to craft a malicious XML input file that can lead libxml to crash, resulting in a denial of service or other possible undefined behavior due to sensitive data being corrupted in memory.

The Red Hat Product Security team has evaluated this vulnerability as having an Important security impact, as libxml can be used to parse XML from the network depending on how the program consumes it using the library.

Additionally, although the initial report shows a crash due to invalid memory access (A:H), other undefined issues that can present data integrity due to the application overwriting sensitive data are not discarded (I:H). Red Hat severity: Important — CVSS 9.1 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H).

Weakness: CWE-125.

Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support; and 27 more.