Cyber Posture

CVE-2024-56438

Medium

Published: 08 January 2025

Published
08 January 2025
Modified
26 September 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score 6.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0008 22.7th percentile
Risk Priority 12 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2024-56438 is a medium-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Huawei Harmonyos. Its CVSS base score is 6.0 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 22.7th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SC-39 (Process Isolation) and SI-16 (Memory Protection).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.
Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

prevent

Directly enforces memory protection mechanisms to mitigate improper memory address protection vulnerabilities like CVE-2024-56438 in the HUKS module.

prevent

Provides for timely remediation of the specific HUKS memory flaw through patching as referenced in the Huawei security bulletin.

prevent

Isolates HUKS module processes to prevent memory corruption from propagating and causing broader system availability impact with changed scope.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Why these techniques?

Local memory protection flaw (CWE-119) with high-priv access yields availability impact via system/application exploitation, directly enabling endpoint DoS.

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

Vulnerability of improper memory address protection in the HUKS module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2024-56438 is a vulnerability involving improper memory address protection in the HUKS module. It is classified under CWE-119 and has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.0 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H). The vulnerability was published on 2025-01-08.

Exploitation requires local access (AV:L) with high privileges (PR:H), low attack complexity (AC:L), and no user interaction (UI:N). A successful attack can achieve high impact on availability (A:H) with a changed scope (S:C), potentially disrupting system services.

Mitigation details are provided in the Huawei security bulletin at https://consumer.huawei.com/en/support/bulletin/2025/1/.

Details

CWE(s)

Affected Products

huawei
emui
14.0.0
huawei
harmonyos
3.1.0, 4.0.0, 4.2.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-56442Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2024-56434Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2024-57959Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2024-56440Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2026-28552Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2024-57962Same product: Huawei Harmonyos
CVE-2026-34853Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2026-28542Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2023-52953Same product: Huawei Emui
CVE-2024-57956Same product: Huawei Harmonyos

References