Summary
Oxford Nanopore Technologies' MinKNOW software at or prior to version 24.11 stores authentication...
Oxford Nanopore Technologies' MinKNOW software at or prior to version 24.11 stores authentication tokens in a file located in the system's temporary directory (/tmp) on the host machine. This directory is typically world-readable, allowing any local user or application to access the token. If the token is leaked (e.g., via malware infection or other local exploit), and remote access is enabled, it can be used to establish unauthorized remote connections to the sequencer. Remote access must be enabled for remote exploitation to succeed. This may occur either because the user has enabled remote access for legitimate operational reasons or because malware with elevated privileges (e.g., sudo access) enables it without user consent. This vulnerability can be chained with remote access capabilities to generate a developer token from a remote device. Developer tokens can be created with arbitrary expiration dates, enabling persistent access to the sequencer and bypassing standard authentication mechanisms.
Impact
CVE-2025-54808 has a CVSS score of 7.8 (High). The vector is requires local access, low privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. No fixed version is listed yet, so configuration controls and monitoring matter more in the interim.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2025-54808? CVE-2025-54808 is a high-severity security vulnerability. No fixed version is listed yet.
- How severe is CVE-2025-54808? CVE-2025-54808 has a CVSS score of 7.8 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2025-54808? No fixed version is listed for CVE-2025-54808 yet. Monitor the advisory for updates and apply mitigations in the interim.
- Is CVE-2025-54808 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2025-54808 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2025-54808 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.