Local privilege escalation via freed-memory reuse
Published Sep 7, 2026 · Updated Sep 8, 2026
Use after free in geniezone on affected MediaTek chipsets allows local users with System privilege to escalate privileges. MediaTek identifies the faulty operation only as reuse of freed memory in geniezone and has not published the affected function or lifetime error. Exploitation requires existing System privilege, needs no user interaction, and results in a further local privilege increase.
Summary
What happened
Use after free in geniezone on affected MediaTek chipsets allows local users with System privilege to escalate privileges. MediaTek identifies the faulty operation only as reuse of freed memory in geniezone and has not published the affected function or lifetime error. Exploitation requires existing System privilege, needs no user interaction, and results in a further local privilege increase.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-20517
- Published
- Sep 7, 2026
- Updated
- Sep 8, 2026
- Vendor
- MediaTek
- Product
- MediaTek Chipset
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- admin
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Sep 7, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Sep 8, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=MT6991
- Affected versionversion=MT8755
- Affected versionversion=MT8768
- Affected versionversion=MT8771
- Affected versionversion=MT8775
- Affected versionversion=MT8781
- Affected versionversion=MT8791T
- Affected versionversion=MT8792
- Affected versionversion=MT8793
- Affected versionversion=MT8796
- Affected versionversion=MT8797
- Affected versionversion=MT8798
- Affected versionversion=MT8799
- Affected versionversion=MT8873
- Affected versionversion=MT8883
- Affected versionversion=MT8893
- Affected versionversion=MT8910
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
No CVSS assessment is available in this record.
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
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.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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