CVE-2025-53966
Published: 05 January 2026
Summary
CVE-2025-53966 is a high-severity Classic Buffer Overflow (CWE-120) vulnerability in Samsung Exynos 1380 Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 8.4 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 3.5th 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-16 (Memory Protection).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-53966 is a buffer overflow vulnerability (CWE-120) discovered in Samsung Mobile Processor Exynos 1380, 1480, 2400, and 1580. The issue stems from incorrect handling of the NL80211 vendor command during processing of an IOCTL message, which can lead to a buffer overflow. Published on January 5, 2026, it has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.4 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating high severity due to its potential for significant impact.
A local attacker with no privileges required can exploit this vulnerability with low complexity and no user interaction. By crafting a malicious IOCTL message targeting the NL80211 vendor command, the attacker triggers the buffer overflow, potentially achieving arbitrary code execution, data corruption, or system crashes with high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts within the affected processor's scope.
Samsung Semiconductor has published product security updates addressing this issue, with details available at https://semiconductor.samsung.com/support/quality-support/product-security-updates/ and the dedicated CVE page at https://semiconductor.samsung.com/support/quality-support/product-security-updates/cve-2025-53966/. Security practitioners should consult these advisories for patch deployment and mitigation guidance on affected Exynos-based devices.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-0809
Vulnerability details
An issue was discovered in Samsung Mobile Processor Exynos 1380, 1480, 2400, and 1580. Incorrect Handling of the NL80211 vendor command leads to a buffer overflow during handling of an IOCTL message.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Local unauthenticated buffer overflow enabling arbitrary code execution in kernel/driver context directly facilitates T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Flaw remediation directly addresses the buffer overflow by applying Samsung's published security patches for the affected Exynos processors.
Information input validation enforces bounds checking on NL80211 vendor command IOCTL messages to prevent buffer overflows.
Memory protection mechanisms such as stack canaries and address space layout randomization mitigate the impact of buffer overflows in kernel IOCTL handling.