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Samsung Exynos NPU Driver Out-of-Bounds Write Privilege Escalation
CVE-2025-23099 is a high-severity out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the Samsung Exynos NPU driver affecting Exynos 1480 and Exynos 2400 platforms, including Samsung Galaxy S24+ devices running Android 14. The root cause is a missing length check in NPU queue management. Specifically, the vulnerable logic is in the npu_queue_prepare and npu_queue_alloc functions: npu_queue_prepare allocates input and output queues via npu_queue_alloc and sets NPU_QUEUE_STATE_ALLOC, while npu_queue_alloc returns early without reallocating if that state is already set. As a result, a subsequent call to npu_queue_prepare with larger attacker-controlled container counts can reuse an earlier, smaller allocation. Execution then proceeds into npu_queue_mapping while trusting the larger user-supplied counts, leading to corruption of queue_list->count and q_container->count and ultimately an out-of-bounds write in kernel memory.
What it means and what to do now: patch path, interim mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
Successful exploitation allows a local attacker to corrupt kernel memory from a low-privilege context, resulting in local privilege escalation. Samsung assigned CVSS v3.1 7.8 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating potential high impact to confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Depending on exploitation reliability, the flaw can enable elevation from an untrusted application context to higher privileges through kernel-level memory corruption.
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Until patched firmware is installed, exposure can be reduced by limiting installation and execution of untrusted third-party applications, especially on affected Samsung devices where local app access is possible. Enterprise controls such as application allowlisting, MDM-enforced app restrictions, and rapid deployment of Samsung security updates can reduce risk. Because the issue is locally exploitable from the untrusted_app SELinux context and requires no user interaction, there is no complete mitigation short of applying the vendor patch.
Patch, then assume compromise.
Samsung released a patch for CVE-2025-23099 in its Product Security Update on 2025-06-02. Remediation is to apply Samsung's security update on affected devices and ensure firmware incorporating the vendor fix is deployed on Exynos 1480 and 2400-based products. The underlying fix should enforce proper length validation and ensure queue allocations are resized or rejected when subsequent preparation requests specify larger container counts than previously allocated.
No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
2 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.