VulnerabilityPublished 6 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-54635: Huawei HarmonyOS · Use After Free

Affects Huawei HarmonyOSSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.9 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 12:55 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.9Medium

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:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L

Attack Vector: Adjacent
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

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

Attack Vector: Adjacent: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack, but the attack is limited at the protocol level to a logically adjacent topology. This can mean an attack must be launched from the same shared physical (e.g., Bluetooth or IEEE 802.11) or logical (e.g., local IP subnet) network, or from within a secure or otherwise limited administrative domain (e.g., MPLS, secure VPN to an administrative network zone).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
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 on the impacted component.
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 impacted component 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 impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 6 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

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Huawei HarmonyOS	Affected =5.1.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-54635 effectively, European organizations should: 1) Inventory and identify all Huawei HarmonyOS 5.1.0 devices within their environment, focusing on those using distributed notification services. 2) Implement strict network segmentation to limit adjacent network access, ensuring that potentially vulnerable devices are isolated from critical network segments. 3) Enforce least privilege principles to minimize the ability of low-privilege users to exploit the vulnerability. 4) Educate users about the risk of interacting with suspicious notifications or prompts that could trigger the vulnerability, reducing the likelihood of successful user-interaction-based exploitation. 5) Monitor network traffic and device logs for unusual activity indicative of exploitation attempts, such as repeated crashes or service disruptions in the distributed notification service. 6) Engage with Huawei or trusted security advisories to obtain patches or updates as they become available and prioritize timely deployment. 7) Consider deploying host-based intrusion detection or endpoint protection solutions capable of detecting anomalous behavior related to memory corruption. 8) For critical environments, evaluate the necessity of Huawei HarmonyOS devices and consider alternative solutions if risk tolerance is low.

Description

Vulnerability of returning released pointers in the distributed notification service. Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-54635 depends largely on the deployment of Huawei HarmonyOS devices within their infrastructure or user base. HarmonyOS is primarily used in Huawei's IoT devices, smartphones, and other smart devices. If such devices are integrated into enterprise environments, especially in sectors relying on distributed notification services for critical operations (e.g., manufacturing, smart building management, or telecommunications), exploitation could lead to service disruptions. The vulnerability could cause denial of service conditions, affecting availability and potentially interrupting business processes. Given the adjacent network attack vector, attackers would need network proximity or compromised internal networks, which could be feasible in environments with insufficient network segmentation. The requirement for user interaction reduces the likelihood of widespread automated exploitation but does not eliminate targeted attacks. Confidentiality and integrity impacts are low, so data breaches or unauthorized data modification are less likely. However, availability impacts could affect operational continuity, particularly in critical infrastructure or industries with high reliance on Huawei devices. Additionally, given geopolitical tensions and scrutiny around Huawei products in Europe, organizations may face increased pressure to assess and mitigate risks associated with Huawei devices.

CWE-416Use After Free (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #7
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
Architecture and Design · Language Selection
Choose a language that provides automatic memory management.
Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
When freeing pointers, be sure to set them to NULL once they are freed. However, the utilization of multiple or complex data structures may lower the usefulness of this strategy.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

consumer.huawei.com/en/support/bulletin/2025/8/ (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 6 Aug 2025, 03:04 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-416

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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