CVE-2025-33252: 
NixOS vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-33252 is a deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability (CWE-502) in the NVIDIA NeMo Framework that could allow an attacker to cause remote code execution. It affects all versions of NVIDIA NeMo prior to 2.6.1. The vulnerability was published on February 18, 2026, with an initial NVD analysis completed on February 20, 2026. It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8 (High), assigned by NVIDIA Corporation (NVIDIA Advisory, Red Hat CVE).

The vulnerability is rooted in improper handling of serialized data within the NVIDIA NeMo Framework, classified as CWE-502 (Deserialization of Untrusted Data), which maps to CAPEC-586 (Object Injection). An attacker with local, low-privileged access can supply maliciously crafted serialized objects that, when deserialized by the framework, trigger arbitrary code execution without requiring any user interaction. The attack vector is local with low attack complexity, meaning no special conditions or race conditions are required beyond having a low-privileged account on the affected system (NVIDIA Advisory, Red Hat CVE).

Successful exploitation of CVE-2025-33252 can result in arbitrary code execution, denial of service, information disclosure, and data tampering on the affected system. All three security pillars — confidentiality, integrity, and availability — are rated as high impact, meaning an attacker could fully compromise the NeMo Framework environment, exfiltrate sensitive model data or training datasets, corrupt outputs, or render the service unavailable. Given NeMo's use in AI/ML pipelines, exploitation could also affect downstream systems or data that depend on the framework's outputs (NVIDIA Advisory, Red Hat CVE).

There is currently no public proof-of-concept exploit code and no evidence of in-the-wild exploitation for CVE-2025-33252. The EPSS score is approximately 0.318%, indicating a low probability of exploitation in the near term. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. Exploitation requires local access with low privileges, which limits the attack surface compared to network-exploitable vulnerabilities (Red Hat CVE, NVIDIA Advisory).

NVIDIA has released a patch in NeMo Framework version 2.6.1, which resolves this vulnerability. Organizations should upgrade to version 2.6.1 or later as the primary remediation step. As a general defense-in-depth measure, restrict local access to NeMo Framework environments to only trusted, necessary users, and apply the principle of least privilege to limit exposure. No specific configuration-based workaround has been published by NVIDIA (NVIDIA Advisory, Red Hat CVE).