VulnerabilityPublished 11 Nov 2025Updated 12 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-20056: Intel VTune Profiler · Escalation of Privilege

Affects Intel VTune ProfilerSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.8 Medium : upgrade to 2025.1 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

4.8Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 2% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 2025.1

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: Low
Vulnerable system availability: Low
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable system is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or through terminal emulation (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., using social engineering techniques to trick a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker requires privileges that provide basic capabilities that are typically limited to settings and resources owned by a single low-privileged user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges has the ability to access only non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact to the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the Vulnerable System are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 11 Nov 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade Intel VTune Profiler to 2025.1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Intel VTune Profiler	Affected <2025.1	Fixed in 2025.1

AI-suggested

2) Restrict access to VTune Profiler installations to only trusted and necessary personnel, enforcing strict local user account management and minimizing the number of users with authenticated access. 3) Employ application whitelisting and endpoint protection solutions to monitor and control execution of profiling tools and related processes. 4) Conduct regular audits of user privileges and local account activities on systems running VTune Profiler to detect any anomalous behavior indicative of privilege escalation attempts. 5) Isolate development and profiling environments from critical production systems to limit the impact of any exploitation. 6) Educate developers and engineers about the risks of running outdated profiling tools and the importance of applying security updates promptly. These targeted actions go beyond generic advice by focusing on controlling local access, monitoring, and environment segmentation specific to the nature of this vulnerability.

Description

Improper input validation for some Intel VTune Profiler before version 2025.1 within Ring 3: User Applications may allow an escalation of privilege. Unprivileged software adversary with an authenticated user combined with a low complexity attack may enable data manipulation. This result may potentially occur via local access when attack requirements are not present without special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction. The potential vulnerability may impact the confidentiality (none), integrity (low) and availability (low) of the vulnerable system, resulting in subsequent system confidentiality (none), integrity (none) and availability (none) impacts.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-20056 is primarily on the integrity and availability of systems running Intel VTune Profiler. While confidentiality is not affected, the ability of a low-privileged user to escalate privileges and manipulate data could undermine trust in performance analysis results, potentially leading to incorrect diagnostics or decisions based on corrupted profiling data. This could affect software development, testing, and optimization processes, especially in sectors relying heavily on performance tuning such as automotive, aerospace, and financial services. The low complexity and lack of required user interaction increase the risk in environments where local user accounts are shared or insufficiently controlled. Although the vulnerability does not directly compromise critical systems, the indirect effects on development and operational workflows could cause delays, misconfigurations, or degraded system performance. Given the lack of known exploits, the immediate threat is moderate, but organizations should not underestimate the potential for insider threats or lateral movement within networks.

References

intel.com/content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-01355.html (opens in a new tab)

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