VulnerabilityPublished 6 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-54651: Huawei HarmonyOS · Race Condition

Affects Huawei HarmonyOSSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.8 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 09:15 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.8Medium

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

EPSS: 0.06% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 0% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

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

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component 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 remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
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: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
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 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 =5.0.1	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should: 1) Monitor Huawei's official security advisories closely for patches addressing CVE-2025-54651 and apply updates promptly once available. 2) Restrict local access to devices running affected HarmonyOS versions by enforcing strict access controls and user authentication policies to minimize the risk of local exploitation. 3) Implement endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions capable of identifying anomalous behavior indicative of race condition exploitation attempts, such as unusual kernel module activity or process synchronization anomalies. 4) Conduct thorough security audits on Huawei devices within their environment to identify and isolate those running vulnerable versions. 5) Educate users on the risks of interacting with untrusted applications or content that could trigger the required user interaction for exploitation. 6) Where feasible, consider network segmentation to isolate critical Huawei-based systems from general user networks, reducing the attack surface. 7) Collaborate with Huawei support channels for guidance on interim mitigations or configuration changes that could reduce exposure until patches are available.

Description

Race condition vulnerability in the kernel hufs module. Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect service confidentiality.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability depends largely on the extent of HarmonyOS device usage within their infrastructure or user base. Huawei HarmonyOS is primarily deployed on Huawei's IoT devices, smartphones, and embedded systems. Organizations using Huawei devices for critical communications, industrial IoT, or mobile operations could face risks of data leakage or service disruption due to this vulnerability. The race condition could be exploited to gain unauthorized access to confidential information or cause denial of service conditions, impacting operational continuity and data privacy compliance under regulations such as GDPR. Additionally, sectors like telecommunications, manufacturing, and public services that may rely on Huawei hardware could experience increased risk exposure. Although exploitation requires local access and user interaction, insider threats or compromised devices could serve as vectors. The lack of known exploits currently reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the potential for future attacks, especially as threat actors often target race conditions to bypass security controls.

CWE-362Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition') (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumOWASP Top 10 A06:2025: Insecure Design (opens in a new tab)
The product contains a concurrent code sequence that requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence operating concurrently.
Architecture and Design
In languages that support it, use synchronization primitives. Only wrap these around critical code to minimize the impact on performance.
Architecture and Design
Use thread-safe capabilities such as the data access abstraction in Spring.
Architecture and Design
Minimize the usage of shared resources in order to remove as much complexity as possible from the control flow and to reduce the likelihood of unexpected conditions occurring.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Secure Design Principles (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V1.11.2 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions (opens in a new tab)
Leveraging Race Conditions (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, 03:48 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-362

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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