Local privilege escalation via unbounded notification fields
Published Dec 13, 2022 · Updated Apr 22, 2025
Improper input-size validation in Android 10, 11, 12, 12L, and 13 allows local users to escalate privileges through a crafted notification channel. NotificationChannel's Parcel constructor accepts oversized identifier, name, description, group, and conversation strings without truncation, allowing resource exhaustion to prevent permission settings from persisting. Exploitation requires low-privileged local code but no user interaction, and successful abuse gains privileges by causing the system to lose its intended permission state.
Summary
What happened
Improper input-size validation in Android 10, 11, 12, 12L, and 13 allows local users to escalate privileges through a crafted notification channel. NotificationChannel's Parcel constructor accepts oversized identifier, name, description, group, and conversation strings without truncation, allowing resource exhaustion to prevent permission settings from persisting. Exploitation requires low-privileged local code but no user interaction, and successful abuse gains privileges by causing the system to lose its intended permission state.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-20491
- Published
- Dec 13, 2022
- Updated
- Apr 22, 2025
- Vendor
- Google Cloud
- Product
- Android
- Classifications
- CWE-1284, T1404
- 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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