Local privilege escalation via oversized notification fields
Published Dec 13, 2022 · Updated Apr 22, 2025
Improper input validation in Android 10 through 13 allows local users to escalate privileges through oversized notification-channel fields. NotificationChannel's parcel constructor accepted unbounded strings for fields such as parent and conversation identifiers, allowing crafted channel data to exhaust resources before permission settings were persisted. A local low-privileged app can trigger the condition without user interaction, leaving permission changes unapplied and retaining access that should have been revoked.
Summary
What happened
Improper input validation in Android 10 through 13 allows local users to escalate privileges through oversized notification-channel fields. NotificationChannel's parcel constructor accepted unbounded strings for fields such as parent and conversation identifiers, allowing crafted channel data to exhaust resources before permission settings were persisted. A local low-privileged app can trigger the condition without user interaction, leaving permission changes unapplied and retaining access that should have been revoked.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-20488
- Published
- Dec 13, 2022
- Updated
- Apr 22, 2025
- Vendor
- Google Cloud
- Product
- Android
- Classifications
- CWE-1284, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Dec 13, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 22, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=Android-10 Android-11 Android-12 Android-12L Android-13
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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