CVE-2025-40277VulnerabilityPublished 30 Mar 2026

ZDI-26-232: (Pwn2Own) Red Hat Enterprise Linux vmwgfx Driver Integer Overflow Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Source Zero Day Initiative

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Not known to be exploited.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

Severity

High

Rated High by Zero Day Initiative · No CVSS score from NVD or the CNA

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 14% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
Public on cve.org; its publication date is not in this record
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 30 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.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), 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

Red Hat has issued an official update that corrects this vulnerability. Users should apply the Red Hat security update available at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2025-40277 to remediate this issue. No additional mitigation steps are required beyond applying the vendor-provided patch.

Description

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The ZDI has assigned a CVSS rating of 8.8. The following CVEs are assigned: CVE-2025-40277.

Impact

An attacker who can execute low-privileged code on a vulnerable Red Hat Enterprise Linux system can exploit this vulnerability to escalate privileges to kernel level. This enables arbitrary code execution with kernel privileges, potentially leading to full system compromise including confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts.

Summary

CVE-2025-40277 is a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the vmwgfx driver of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The flaw arises from improper validation of user-supplied data in the vmw_cmd_check function, causing an integer overflow before memory write operations. This allows an attacker with low-level code execution privileges to escalate to kernel-level code execution, compromising system integrity. The vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H). Red Hat has released an official patch to remediate this issue.

References

zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-26-232/ (opens in a new tab)

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