Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-21101

Race Condition in Dell Display Manager ≤ 2.3.2.20

Published
15 January 2025
Modified
04 February 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.6
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0010 1th percentile
Risk Priority 41 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-21101 is a medium-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Dell Display Manager. Its CVSS base score is 6.6 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 1th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-6 (Least Privilege) and CM-5 (Access Restrictions for Change) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Dell Display Manager, versions prior to 2.3.2.20, contain a race condition vulnerability. A local malicious user could potentially exploit this vulnerability during installation, leading to arbitrary folder or file deletion.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-32451Same product: Dell Display Manager
CVE-2023-28046Same product: Dell Display Manager
CVE-2023-32474Same product: Dell Display Manager
CVE-2023-28047Same product: Dell Display Manager
CVE-2025-22394Same product: Dell Display Manager
CVE-2025-30475Same vendor: Dell
CVE-2024-37139Same vendor: Dell
CVE-2025-43993Same vendor: Dell
CVE-2023-48664Same vendor: Dell
CVE-2023-28055Same vendor: Dell

Affected Assets

dell
display manager
≤ 2.3.2.20

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
  • CM-5 Access Restrictions for Change
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V10.4.2
  • V10.4.5
  • V15.1.3
  • V15.4.1

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Least privilege directly limits the local user's rights so a race condition during install cannot be exploited to delete arbitrary files or folders.

prevent

Access restrictions for change enforce that only authorized processes may modify protected directories, blocking the unauthorized deletions enabled by the installer race condition.

prevent

Access enforcement mediates all file-system operations, preventing the malicious local user from succeeding with the deletion even if the race window is reached.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require proper synchronization primitives and concurrency testing that prevent race conditions.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

detects

Security testing can detect race conditions, but does not prevent them at design or coding time.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates concurrency controls and synchronization primitives that directly prevent race conditions.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify thread-safety and locking rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.

prevents

Secure architecture principles require proper synchronization and resource isolation, addressing the root cause of CWE-362.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe concurrent access patterns and mandate atomic operations or locks.

none

Change management reduces introduction of concurrency bugs during updates, yet does not address the weakness itself.

References