Local privilege escalation via initializer-thread race
Published Oct 27, 2023 · Updated Apr 30, 2025
Use-after-free in Android 12, 12L, and 13 GpuService allows local users to elevate privileges through a race condition. GpuService destroys its object while asynchronous initializer threads can still access it, allowing them to dereference freed heap memory. A low-privileged local process can trigger the race without user interaction and gain elevated execution privileges, while the required timing makes exploitation complex.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in Android 12, 12L, and 13 GpuService allows local users to elevate privileges through a race condition. GpuService destroys its object while asynchronous initializer threads can still access it, allowing them to dereference freed heap memory. A low-privileged local process can trigger the race without user interaction and gain elevated execution privileges, while the required timing makes exploitation complex.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-40131
- Published
- Oct 27, 2023
- Updated
- Apr 30, 2025
- Vendor
- Product
- Android
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Oct 27, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 30, 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?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=12
- Affected versionversion=12L
- Affected versionversion=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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