Lin Hsin Hsin Quantum Security Center
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Qiskit Vulnerabilities Details
by Lin Hsin Hsin





Summary

A maliciously crafted QPY payload can potentially execute arbitrary-code embedded in the payload without privilege escalation when deserialising QPY format versions < 13.

A Python process calling Qiskit's qiskit.qpy.load() function could potentially execute any arbitrary Python code embedded in the correct place in the binary file as part of specially constructed payload



Attack Vector Mechanism Impact
CVE-2025-2000
Arbitrary Code Execution		 Exploits insecure deserialization in qiskit.qpy.load() for QPY formats < v13. CVSS:9.8
Allows full remote code execution without privilege escalation.
CVE-2025-1403
Denial of Service		 Triggers a segmentation fault (segfault), causing the application to crash instantly Crashes quantum applications using malformed mathematical data
CVE-2025-4870
Denial of Service		 Triggers segfaults via malformed symengine serialization, to invoke an uncontrolled recursion for a specific input Causes the software to loop infinitely until it exhausts memory and crashes
CVE-2024-29032
Runtime Deserialization		 RuntimeDecoder insecurely instantiates objects from crafted JSON inputs. Enables remote code execution via subprocess instantiation.
OpenQASM Parser Overflow Recursively deep expressions in OpenQASM 2 parsers exceed stack limits. Causes stack overflow and process termination (segfault).
Supply Chain Propagation Vulnerable code in Qiskit Aer propagates to dependent simulators (eg XACC). Compromises downstream national lab infrastructure and simulators.



Vulnerability Details


The CVSS vector string


CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

corresponds to a Base Score of 9.8 & a Critical severity rating
          This score represents a vulnerability that is

          Network-accessible (AV:N)
          Low attack complexity (AC:L)
          Requires no privileges (PR:N)
          Requires no user interaction (UI:N)
          Has unchanged scope (S:U)

It Causes high impact on Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (C:H/I:H/A:H)

Essentially, this describes a critical, unauthenticated, remote exploit that allows an attacker to fully compromise the system's data and functionality without any prerequisites