Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-9408

Published
11 November 2025
Modified
15 April 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 8.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0011 2th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-9408 is a high-severity Privilege Context Switching Error (CWE-270) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 8.1 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Access Token Manipulation (T1134); ranked at the 2th 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-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

System call entry on Cortex M (and possibly R and A, but I think not) has a race which allows very practical privilege escalation for malicious userspace processes.

CWE(s)
CWE-270

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1134 Access Token Manipulation Stealth
Adversaries may modify access tokens to operate under a different user or system security context to perform actions and bypass access controls.
attack.mitre.org →
T1134.001 Token Impersonation/Theft Stealth
Adversaries may duplicate then impersonate another user's existing token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.
attack.mitre.org →
T1548 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may circumvent mechanisms designed to control privilege elevation to gain higher-level permissions.
attack.mitre.org →
T1548.001 Setuid and Setgid Privilege Escalation
An adversary may abuse configurations where an application has the setuid or setgid bits set in order to get code running in a different (and possibly more privileged) user’s context.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-55210Shared CWE-270
CVE-2024-11263Shared CWE-270
CVE-2025-60721Shared CWE-270
CVE-2024-8641Shared CWE-270
CVE-2026-34853Shared CWE-270
CVE-2024-36513Shared CWE-270
CVE-2025-46406Shared CWE-270
CVE-2023-25754Shared CWE-270
CVE-2024-12570Shared CWE-270
CVE-2023-37912Shared CWE-270

Affected Assets

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 2 hardening rules · 2 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V13.2.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-3 Access Enforcement good match

AC-3 enforces access authorizations according to policy at every request, structurally preventing incorrect privilege elevation or retention across context switches.

AC-6 Least Privilege good match

AC-6 requires least-privilege assignments and privilege minimization, reducing the opportunity for erroneous privilege state during context transitions.

AC-24 Access Control Decisions partial match

AC-24 mandates that access-control decisions be made and enforced correctly for each request, directly addressing flawed privilege context switches.

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.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

Enforcing least-privilege authorization policies and reviews directly prevents improper privilege changes across contexts.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Integrating secure-development practices catches and eliminates context-switching privilege errors during design and coding.

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.

A.8.2 Privileged access rights mostly match
prevents

Privileged-access-rights control directly addresses improper privilege elevation during context switches.

A.5.15 Access control partial match
prevents

Access-control policy defines privilege boundaries but does not guarantee correct switching logic.

A.5.18 Access rights partial match
prevents

Managing access rights includes privilege assignment but not runtime context-switch enforcement.

A.8.18 Use of privileged utility programs partial match
mitigates

Restricting privileged utilities reduces exposure to context-switch privilege errors.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure-SDLC practices can catch privilege-handling defects early but do not guarantee runtime correctness.

A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles partial match
prevents

Secure-architecture principles encourage least-privilege context separation but leave implementation details open.

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).

Ubuntu 22.04 (1 rule)
  • V-260470 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, when booted, must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-270

References