VulnerabilityPublished 1 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-8045: Arm Valhall GPU Kernel Driver · Use After Free

Affects Arm Valhall GPU Kernel DriverSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.0 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.0Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 7% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: None
Availability: None

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: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
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: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 1 Dec 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

Monitor Arm Ltd’s official channels for patches addressing CVE-2025-8045 and apply them promptly once available.
Restrict local access to systems running affected Arm 5th Gen GPU drivers to trusted users only, minimizing the risk of local exploitation.
Employ endpoint security solutions that detect and prevent unauthorized local code execution or privilege escalation attempts.
Implement strict user account controls and limit the use of shared or guest accounts on devices with affected GPUs.
Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability scans focusing on GPU driver versions to identify and remediate vulnerable systems.
For organizations deploying embedded or IoT devices with Arm GPUs, ensure firmware and driver updates are part of the device lifecycle management.
Consider isolating sensitive workloads from untrusted users or processes to reduce the risk of information leakage via GPU memory.
Educate users about the risks of running untrusted code locally and enforce policies to prevent unauthorized software installation.

Description

Use After Free vulnerability in Arm Ltd Valhall GPU Kernel Driver, Arm Ltd Arm 5th Gen GPU Architecture Kernel Driver allows a local non-privileged user process to perform improper GPU processing operations to gain access to already freed memory.This issue affects Valhall GPU Kernel Driver: from r53p0 through r54p1; Arm 5th Gen GPU Architecture Kernel Driver: from r53p0 through r54p1.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2025-8045 is the potential local disclosure of sensitive information processed or stored in GPU memory. This could affect confidentiality, particularly in environments where sensitive workloads or cryptographic operations utilize the GPU. Since exploitation requires local access without privilege escalation, the threat is more relevant in scenarios where untrusted users or malware can execute code locally, such as shared workstations, developer machines, or multi-user systems. The vulnerability does not affect system integrity or availability, so it is less likely to cause system crashes or data corruption. However, information leakage could facilitate further attacks or data breaches. European enterprises with mobile device fleets, embedded systems, or edge computing devices using Arm 5th Gen GPUs may be at risk. The lack of known exploits reduces immediate risk, but the medium severity score and potential for sensitive data exposure warrant proactive mitigation. Organizations in sectors handling sensitive personal data, intellectual property, or critical infrastructure should be particularly vigilant.

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

developer.arm.com/documentation/110697/latest/ (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 8 Dec 2025, 11:54 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-416

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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