CVE-2025-54059 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.4) Incorrect Default Permissions vulnerability in chainguard.dev/melange. A fix is available for chainguard.dev/melange — see the affected versions and patch details below.
melange creates SBOM files in APKs with world-writable permissions
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2025-54059.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2025-54059 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,156 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
chainguard.dev/melangeReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
It was discovered that the SBOM files generated by melange in apks had file system permissions mode 666:
$ apkrane ls https://packages.wolfi.dev/os/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz -P hello-wolfi --full --latest | xargs wget -q -O - | tar tzv 2>/dev/null var/lib/db/sbom
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2025-06-23 14:17 var/lib/db/sbom
-rw-rw-rw- root/root 3383 2025-06-23 14:17 var/lib/db/sbom/hello-wolfi-2.12.2-r1.spdx.json
This issue was introduced in commit 1b272db ("Persist workspace filesystem throughout package builds (#1836)") (v0.23.0).
Impact
This potentially allows an unprivileged user to tamper with apk SBOMs on a running image, potentially confusing security scanners. An attacker could also perform a DoS under special circumstances.
Patches
This issue was addressed in melange in e29494b ("fix: tighten up permissions for written SBOM files and signature tarballs (#2086)") (v0.29.5).
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Cody Harris H2O.ai and Markus Boehme for independently reporting this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | chainguard.dev/melange | ≥ 0.23.0&&< 0.29.5 | 0.29.5go get chainguard.dev/melange@v0.29.5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for chainguard.dev/melange, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update chainguard.dev/melange to 0.29.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-54059 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2025-54059 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2025-54059. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-54059 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2025-54059 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.