Actively exploited in the wild
Arm Mali GPU Kernel Driver Use-After-Free Vulnerability
Arm - Mali Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) · Listed in the CISA KEV since 2023-03-30. This indicates confirmed attacks in production environments.
Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.
CVE-2022-38181
HighCVSS 8.8KEVSummary
The Arm Mali GPU kernel driver mishandles GPU memory operations, allowing unprivileged users to access freed memory (use-after-free). This affects Bifrost, Valhall, and Midgard architectures within specific version ranges.
Risk Assessment
A local unprivileged attacker can exploit this to access freed memory, potentially leading to privilege escalation or arbitrary code execution in kernel context. This impacts many mobile and embedded devices with Arm Mali GPUs.
Recommendation
Update the Arm Mali GPU driver to the latest version containing the fix. If updating is not possible, consider restricting device access or applying additional isolation mechanisms.
Other vulnerabilities in Arm Mali GPU kernel driver
See all- CVE-2022-22706HighActively exploited
The Arm Mali GPU Kernel Driver allows a non-privileged user to achieve write access to read-only memory pages. This affects Midgard r26p0 through r31p0, Bifrost r0p0 through r35p0, and Valhall r19p0 through r35p0.
- CVE-2021-29256HighActively exploited
The Arm Mali GPU kernel driver allows an unprivileged user to access freed memory, leading to information disclosure or root privilege escalation. Affects Bifrost r16p0 through r29p0 before r30p0, Valhall r19p0 through r29p0 before r30p0, and Midgard r28p0 through r30p0.
- CVE-2021-28664HighActively exploited
The Arm Mali GPU kernel driver allows privilege escalation or denial of service (memory corruption) because an unprivileged user can achieve read/write access to read-only pages. Affects Bifrost r0p0 through r29p0 before r30p0, Valhall r19p0 through r29p0 before r30p0, and Midgard r8p0 through r30p0 before r31p0.
- CVE-2021-28663HighActively exploited
The Arm Mali GPU kernel driver allows privilege escalation or information disclosure because GPU memory operations are mishandled, leading to a use-after-free. Affects Bifrost r0p0 through r28p0 before r29p0, Valhall r19p0 through r28p0 before r29p0, and Midgard r4p0 through r30p0.
Original NVD description (English source)
The Arm Mali GPU kernel driver allows unprivileged users to access freed memory because GPU memory operations are mishandled. This affects Bifrost r0p0 through r38p1, and r39p0; Valhall r19p0 through r38p1, and r39p0; and Midgard r4p0 through r32p0.