Local privilege escalation via UnwindingWorker use-after-free
Published Mar 24, 2023 · Updated Feb 26, 2025
Use-after-free in Android 13's UnwindingWorker allows local users with System execution privileges to escalate privileges without interaction. Its destructor destroys the task runner before client data, allowing the client's UnixSocket to post work through the destroyed runner and cause an out-of-bounds write. Exploitation requires an active heapprofd client when the tracing service disconnects and grants elevated local execution.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in Android 13's UnwindingWorker allows local users with System execution privileges to escalate privileges without interaction. Its destructor destroys the task runner before client data, allowing the client's UnixSocket to post work through the destroyed runner and cause an out-of-bounds write. Exploitation requires an active heapprofd client when the tracing service disconnects and grants elevated local execution.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-21018
- Published
- Mar 24, 2023
- Updated
- Feb 26, 2025
- Vendor
- Google Cloud
- Product
- Android
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1404
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- admin
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Mar 24, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Feb 26, 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-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.
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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