CVE-2025-35998
Raw vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:XSummary
CVE-2025-35998 is a high-severity Missing Protection Mechanism for Alternate Hardware Interface (CWE-1299) vulnerability in Intel (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 7.0 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism (T1548); ranked at the 5th 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-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2025-35998 is a vulnerability involving a missing protection mechanism for an alternate hardware interface in the Intel(R) Quick Assist Technology for some Intel(R) Platforms, operating within Ring 0. This flaw in the kernel can allow escalation of privilege. It is classified under CWE-1299 and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.9 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N), indicating high severity due to impacts on confidentiality and integrity.
A system software adversary with privileged user access (PR:H) can exploit this vulnerability via local access (AV:L) using a low-complexity attack (AC:L) that requires no user interaction (UI:N) and special internal knowledge. The attack changes scope (S:C), potentially enabling escalation of privilege with high confidentiality (C:H) and integrity (I:H) impacts but no availability effects (A:N).
For mitigation details, refer to the Intel Security Advisory at https://intel.com/content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-01406.html.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-207130
Vulnerability Data
Missing protection mechanism for alternate hardware interface in the Intel(R) Quick Assist Technology for some Intel(R) Platforms within Ring 0: Kernel may allow an escalation of privilege. System software adversary with a privileged user combined with a low complexity attack…
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may enable escalation of privilege. This result may potentially occur via local access when attack requirements are present with special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction. The potential vulnerability may impact the confidentiality (high), integrity (high) and availability (none) of the vulnerable system, resulting in subsequent system confidentiality (none), integrity (none) and availability (none) impacts.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 4 hardening rules · 4 OS baselines
V16.4.2V13.3.3V8.4.2V11.7.1
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Least privilege explicitly demands that only the minimum necessary accesses are granted, eliminating the broad permissions that define this weakness.
AC-24 requires access decisions to be applied precisely and unambiguously to every request, structurally blocking insufficiently granular policies.
AC-3 requires access enforcement on every logical path to protected assets, directly stopping bypass via unguarded alternate hardware interfaces.
SC-7 mandates control at all external and key internal interfaces, preventing access-control bypass through alternate hardware paths.
AC-4 enforces approved information flows with explicit source/destination rules, preventing overly coarse access policies from being deployed.
CM-7 disables or restricts unnecessary ports and interfaces, eliminating many alternate hardware paths before they can be exploited.
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.IR-01's segmentation + zero-trust rules directly enforce minimum-necessary access at network boundaries, removing most instances of overly broad policy; CWE-1220 can still exist in application-layer or intra-segment controls that this single outcome does not address.
CWE-1299 can impair DE.CM-09 by letting adverse events on unguarded alternate interfaces evade monitoring that assumes primary paths, yet the weakness only affects one narrow slice of the broad monitoring outcome.
PR.PS-06's general SDLC practices can surface granularity issues during design/review (partial prevention) but do not specifically target access-control policy breadth, so they remove only part of CWE-1220's risk.
CWE-1220 permits unauthorized access to sensitive assets but neither prevents nor impairs the delivery of adverse-event information to authorized recipients.
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.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles require protection of all interfaces, directly addressing unguarded alternate hardware paths.
Security testing can discover alternate-path weaknesses but does not inherently prevent them.
Directly requires information-access restriction at the level of individual assets and operations, addressing the granularity gap.
Establishes the overarching access-control policy whose granularity directly determines whether the weakness exists.
Defines the assignment and review of access rights; insufficient granularity in those rights is the root of CWE-1220.
Specifies management of privileged access rights, where overly broad privileges are a common manifestation of the weakness.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Windows Server 2016 (1 rule)
- V-225025 Local accounts with blank passwords must be restricted to prevent access from the network. prevents CWE-1220
Windows Server 2022 (1 rule)
- V-254446 Windows Server 2022 must prevent local accounts with blank passwords from being used from the network. prevents CWE-1220