VulnerabilityPublished 12 Aug 2025Updated 26 Feb 2026

CVE-2025-22840: Intel(R) Xeon(R) 6 Scalable processors · Escalation of Privilege

Affects Intel(R) Xeon(R) 6 Scalable processorsSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.3 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 12:55 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

5.3Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 3% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: High
Attack Requirements: Present
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Passive
Vulnerable system confidentiality: High
Vulnerable system integrity: High
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: High: The successful attack depends on the evasion or circumvention of security-enhancing techniques in place that would otherwise hinder the attack. These include: Evasion of exploit mitigation techniques, for example, circumvention of address space randomization (ASLR) or data execution prevention (DEP) must be performed for the attack to be successful; Obtaining target-specific secrets. The attacker must gather some target-specific secret before the attack can be successful. A secret is any piece of information that cannot be obtained through any amount of reconnaissance. To obtain the secret the attacker must perform additional attacks or break otherwise secure measures (e.g. knowledge of a secret key may be needed to break a crypto channel). This operation must be performed for each attacked target.
Attack Requirements: Present: The successful attack depends on the presence of specific deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system that enable the attack. These include: a race condition must be won to successfully exploit the vulnerability (the successfulness of the attack is conditioned on execution conditions that are not under full control of the attacker, or the attack may need to be launched multiple times against a single target before being successful); the attacker must inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim (e.g. vulnerabilities requiring an on-path attacker).
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: Passive: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires limited interaction by the targeted user with the vulnerable system and the attacker’s payload. These interactions would be considered involuntary and do not require that the user actively subvert protections built into the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: High: There is a total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all information within the Vulnerable System being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact. For example, an attacker steals the administrator's password, or private encryption keys of a web server.
Vulnerable system integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the vulnerable system. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence 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 12 Aug 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

AI-suggested

Organizations should prioritize the following mitigation steps: 1) Monitor Intel's security advisories closely and apply firmware or microcode updates as soon as they become available to address this vulnerability. 2) Restrict local access to systems running affected Intel Xeon 6 Scalable processors by enforcing strict physical security controls and limiting administrative privileges. 3) Implement robust endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to detect anomalous behavior indicative of privilege escalation attempts. 4) Employ multi-factor authentication and least privilege principles to reduce the risk posed by compromised local accounts. 5) Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability assessments focusing on local access controls and privilege management. 6) Isolate critical workloads and sensitive data on hardened systems with minimal local user interaction to reduce exposure. 7) Educate system administrators and users about the risks of executing untrusted code or instructions locally. These targeted measures go beyond generic advice by focusing on controlling local access vectors and preparing for patch deployment.

Description

Sequence of processor instructions leads to unexpected behavior for some Intel(R) Xeon(R) 6 Scalable processors may allow an authenticated user to potentially enable escalation of privilege via local access

Impact

The vulnerability poses a significant risk to organizations relying on Intel Xeon 6 Scalable processors, especially in environments where local access is possible, such as data centers, cloud providers, and enterprise servers. Successful exploitation could allow attackers or malicious insiders to escalate privileges, potentially leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data, modification of critical system components, or disruption of secure operations. Although the attack complexity is high and requires user interaction, the impact on confidentiality and integrity is substantial, which could result in data breaches or system compromise. The limited availability impact reduces the risk of denial-of-service conditions. Organizations with multi-tenant environments or shared infrastructure are particularly at risk, as privilege escalation could enable cross-tenant attacks. The absence of known exploits in the wild currently reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the threat, especially as attackers may develop exploits over time. The medium severity rating reflects these factors, emphasizing the need for proactive mitigation.

References

Community reviews

Loading reviews…

Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Feb 2026, 00:57 UTC

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats