CVE-2025-22889VulnerabilityPublished 12 Aug 2025Updated 26 Feb 2026

CVE-2025-22889: Intel(R) Xeon(R) 6 processor with Intel(R) TDX · Escalation of Privilege

Affects Intel(R) Xeon(R) 6 processor with Intel(R) TDXSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.0 High.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

7.0High

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 4% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: Present
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: High
Vulnerable system integrity: High
Vulnerable system availability: None
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: 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: High: The attacker requires privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable system allowing full access to the vulnerable system’s settings and files.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
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: None: There is no impact to availability within 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 2026-10-25.

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 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 monitor Intel’s official advisories and apply patches or microcode updates as soon as they become available to address this vulnerability. Until patches are deployed, it is critical to restrict local privileged access to trusted personnel only and implement strict access controls and monitoring to detect suspicious activities. Employing robust endpoint security solutions that can detect privilege escalation attempts and anomalous behavior is recommended. Additionally, organizations should review and harden their administrative policies, including the use of multi-factor authentication and least privilege principles for local accounts. For cloud providers, isolating workloads and limiting administrative access to hypervisor and host systems can reduce risk. Regularly auditing system logs and employing intrusion detection systems can help identify potential exploitation attempts early. Finally, organizations should consider disabling or limiting the use of TDX features if they are not essential, until a secure patch is applied.

Description

Improper handling of overlap between protected memory ranges for some Intel(R) Xeon(R) 6 processor with Intel(R) TDX may allow a privileged user to potentially enable escalation of privilege via local access.

Impact

The vulnerability poses a significant risk to organizations relying on Intel Xeon 6 processors with TDX for secure workload isolation, such as cloud service providers, data centers, and enterprises with sensitive computing environments. Successful exploitation could allow a privileged local attacker to bypass memory protections, leading to unauthorized access or modification of sensitive data within trusted execution environments. This undermines the security guarantees of TDX, potentially exposing confidential information or enabling further privilege escalation and lateral movement within the system. The impact is particularly critical in multi-tenant cloud environments where isolation between tenants is paramount. Although exploitation requires local privileged access, the potential to escalate privileges further increases the attack surface and risk of insider threats or compromised administrative accounts. The absence of known exploits in the wild reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the threat, especially once exploit code becomes available.

References

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