Threat Intelligence / CVE / CVE-2025-43529

CVE-2025-43529 — Apple Safari

CISA KEV

CVSS v3.1 8.8 (HIGH) · EPSS 0.1% (higher than 35.9% of all scored CVEs) · Priority 9/10 · Published 2025-12-17

As of 2026-04-03, CVE-2025-43529 is a HIGH-severity vulnerability in Apple Safari, CVSS v3.1 8.8, EPSS 0.1% (35.9th percentile). It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2025-12-15), with a US federal remediation deadline of 2026-01-05. Threadlinqs Intelligence links 2 tracked threat campaigns to CVE-2025-43529, most recently “DarkSword: iOS Exploit Chain Adopted by Multiple Threat Actors (CVE-2026-20700, CVE-2025-43529, CVE-2025-31277)”.

Last updated: 2026-04-03

What is CVE-2025-43529?

A use-after-free issue was addressed with improved memory management. This issue is fixed in Safari 26.2, iOS 18.7.3 and iPadOS 18.7.3, iOS 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2, macOS Tahoe 26.2, tvOS 26.2, visionOS 26.2, watchOS 26.2. Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 26. CVE-2025-14174 was also issued in response to this report.

The record classifies CVE-2025-43529 under weakness class CWE-416. Its CVSS v3 base vector states that the flaw is reachable remotely over the network, needs no prior authentication, needs a user to take an action first, and has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability. 7 affected-product entries are recorded, across 1 vendor, listed below. The identifier was first published 270 days ago.

Severity and exploitation probability

CVSS v3.1 base score: 8.8 — HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS (FIRST): 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 35.9% of all scored CVEs
CISA KEV: Listed since 2025-12-15, federal remediation deadline 2026-01-05
Threadlinqs priority: 9/10 — CISA KEV-listed, which Threadlinqs floors at 9
Published: 2025-12-17, last modified 2026-04-03

Is CVE-2025-43529 being exploited?

CISA added CVE-2025-43529 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2025-12-15, which means the agency holds evidence of exploitation in the wild; US federal civilian agencies had to remediate it by 2026-01-05 under BOD 22-01. It currently carries a trending score of 24 in the Threadlinqs vulnerability feed.

Affected products and versions

Apple: Safari, Ipados, Iphone Os, Macos, Tvos, Visionos, Watchos

How to fix CVE-2025-43529

Vendor advisory: https://support.apple.com/en-us/125884. Because CVE-2025-43529 is KEV-listed, US federal civilian agencies were required to apply the vendor fix, or stop using the product, by 2026-01-05. Apply the vendor fix referenced above to every affected product listed in this record, then confirm the running version against the vendor advisory.

Threat activity tracking CVE-2025-43529

2 tracked threats in the Threadlinqs corpus reference CVE-2025-43529, either in the campaign’s CVE list or as an indicator on the campaign record.

DarkSword: iOS Exploit Chain Adopted by Multiple Threat Actors (CVE-2026-20700, CVE-2025-43529, CVE-2025-31277) — CRITICAL · 2026-03-18
Apple Zero-Day CVE-2026-20700: Memory Corruption Enabling Arbitrary Code Execution — Google TAG-Discovered 'Extremely Sophisticated' Targeted Attack — CRITICAL · 2026-02-12

Sources

Seeded from nvd and not yet processed by the Threadlinqs enrichment pipeline, so blank CVSS, EPSS or KEV fields above mean NOT MEASURED rather than measured-absent.

Full detection coverage & IOCs for threats exploiting CVE-2025-43529 are available via the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier). View plans →

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