CVE-2025-49460 in Workplace Desktop
Summary
by MITRE • 09/10/2025
Uncontrolled resource consumption in certain Zoom Workplace Clients may allow an unauthenticated user to conduct a denial of service via network access.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/17/2025
This vulnerability represents a critical resource exhaustion issue affecting Zoom Workplace client implementations that enables unauthenticated denial of service attacks through network access. The flaw stems from inadequate input validation and resource management within the client-side processing logic, where malformed or excessively large network requests can trigger uncontrolled consumption of system resources such as memory, CPU cycles, or network bandwidth. The vulnerability manifests when the affected client processes incoming network traffic without proper bounds checking or resource limiting mechanisms, allowing malicious actors to exploit this weakness by sending specially crafted requests that cause the client application to consume excessive computational resources until the system becomes unresponsive or crashes. This type of vulnerability aligns with CWE-400 which categorizes unchecked resource consumption as a fundamental weakness in software design and implementation practices. The attack vector operates entirely over network protocols without requiring authentication credentials, making it particularly dangerous as it can be exploited by anyone with access to the network segment where the vulnerable client operates. The operational impact extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the availability of critical business communications infrastructure, especially in enterprise environments where Zoom clients are extensively deployed across multiple devices and network endpoints. Organizations utilizing Zoom Workplace solutions face significant risk of operational downtime and productivity loss when this vulnerability is exploited, as the denial of service can affect individual user sessions or broader network availability depending on the scale of the attack. The vulnerability demonstrates a classic example of insufficient resource management in network protocol handling, where the client fails to implement proper rate limiting, request size restrictions, or resource allocation controls that would prevent a single malicious request from consuming disproportionate system resources. From an attack perspective, this weakness maps to ATT&CK technique T1498 which covers resource exhaustion attacks and specifically addresses denial of service through excessive resource consumption. The vulnerability affects multiple Zoom Workplace client implementations across different operating systems and device types, making it a widespread concern for organizations that have deployed these clients in their enterprise environments. The lack of authentication requirements for exploitation makes this particularly concerning for environments where network segmentation is insufficient or where clients are exposed to untrusted network segments. Organizations should prioritize immediate remediation through official Zoom security patches while implementing network-level controls such as rate limiting, traffic monitoring, and access controls to mitigate the risk of exploitation. Additionally, regular security assessments and penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar resource management weaknesses in other enterprise applications and systems that may present analogous attack surfaces. The vulnerability underscores the importance of robust input validation and resource management practices in client-side applications, particularly those handling network communications and processing external data streams. Security teams must also consider implementing network monitoring solutions that can detect anomalous resource consumption patterns and automatically trigger alerts when suspicious activities related to this vulnerability are observed in the network infrastructure.