CVE-2025-21425: Qualcomm Qam8255p Privilege Escalation Flaw

CVE-2025-21425 Overview

CVE-2025-21425 is a memory corruption vulnerability affecting Qualcomm's Hexagon Application Binary (HAB) process across a broad range of automotive and connectivity firmware platforms. The flaw stems from improper access control [CWE-284] within the HAB process, allowing a local, authenticated attacker to trigger memory corruption. Successful exploitation can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of affected systems. Qualcomm disclosed the issue in the April 2025 Security Bulletin and released firmware fixes for impacted chipsets, including the Snapdragon Auto and QCA connectivity families.

Critical Impact
A local attacker with low privileges can corrupt memory in the HAB process, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution or full compromise of automotive and IoT firmware components.

Affected Products

Qualcomm Snapdragon Auto platforms: SA6145P, SA6150P, SA6155P, SA7255P, SA7775P, SA8145P, SA8150P, SA8155P, SA8195P, SA8255P, SA8295P, SA8540P, SA8620P, SA8650P, SA8770P, SA8775P, SA9000P
Qualcomm QAM automotive modules: QAM8255P, QAM8295P, QAM8620P, QAM8650P, QAM8775P, QAMSRV1H, QAMSRV1M
Qualcomm QCA connectivity chipsets: QCA6574AU, QCA6595, QCA6595AU, QCA6688AQ, QCA6696, QCA6698AQ, and SRV1H/SRV1L/SRV1M

Discovery Timeline

2025-04-07 - CVE-2025-21425 published to the National Vulnerability Database
April 2025 - Qualcomm publishes fixes in the April 2025 Security Bulletin
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-21425

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability resides in the Hexagon Application Binary (HAB) process, a component used across Qualcomm's automotive and connectivity SoCs to manage inter-VM communication and shared memory operations. Improper access control allows a low-privileged local process to interact with HAB resources it should not be permitted to touch. This interaction produces memory corruption within the HAB context, which typically runs with elevated privileges relative to standard user applications. On automotive platforms, HAB frequently mediates communication between guest operating systems on a hypervisor, so a corrupted HAB process can affect components outside the attacker's original security boundary. The result is a high-impact local vulnerability that requires no user interaction.

Root Cause

The root cause is classified under CWE-284 (Improper Access Control). The HAB process fails to enforce sufficient authorization checks before operating on caller-controlled data or shared memory regions. This missing validation allows an unprivileged local caller to reach code paths and memory buffers that should be restricted, corrupting internal state.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires local access and low-privilege execution on an affected device, but no user interaction. A malicious application or compromised guest VM interacting with the HAB interface can send crafted requests that bypass access checks. Because HAB runs across trust boundaries on automotive SoCs, exploitation can lead to cross-domain compromise, including impact on safety-critical or driver-assistance subsystems that rely on the affected firmware.

No verified public proof-of-concept is available for this issue. Refer to the Qualcomm April 2025 Security Bulletin for advisory-level technical detail.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-21425

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected crashes, restarts, or watchdog resets of the HAB process or dependent services on affected Qualcomm platforms.
Kernel or hypervisor logs referencing access violations, faults, or aborts originating from HAB IPC or shared memory handlers.
Unsigned or unexpected user-space applications making frequent IOCTL or shared-memory calls to HAB interfaces.

Detection Strategies

Monitor firmware and OS event logs for HAB process anomalies, including abnormal termination, memory faults, or repeated reinitialization events.
Baseline legitimate applications that communicate with HAB and alert on new or unauthorized processes invoking those interfaces.
Correlate device telemetry with the affected chipset list from the Qualcomm April 2025 Security Bulletin to prioritize investigation of vulnerable fleets.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable verbose logging on hypervisor and HAB kernel drivers where supported by the platform vendor.
Aggregate device logs from vehicle head units, telematics units, and IoT endpoints into a centralized platform for pattern analysis.
Track firmware version inventory continuously to identify devices that have not yet received the April 2025 Qualcomm patch.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-21425

Immediate Actions Required

Identify all deployed devices using the Qualcomm chipsets listed in the April 2025 Security Bulletin and inventory their current firmware versions.
Contact device OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to obtain integrated firmware updates that include Qualcomm's HAB fix.
Restrict local installation of third-party applications on affected automotive and IoT devices until patches are deployed.

Patch Information

Qualcomm addressed CVE-2025-21425 in the Qualcomm April 2025 Security Bulletin. Because Qualcomm distributes fixes to OEMs rather than end users directly, organizations must apply firmware updates through their device manufacturer or automotive supplier once integrated builds are released.

Workarounds

Limit device access to trusted, signed applications only, and enforce strict application allowlisting on affected endpoints.
Segment automotive and IoT networks to reduce the ability of an attacker to gain local execution on unpatched devices.
Disable or restrict guest VM interfaces that expose HAB functionality where operational requirements permit.

bash

# Example: inventory Qualcomm firmware version on an affected Android-based head unit
adb shell getprop ro.boot.hardware.sku
adb shell getprop ro.build.version.incremental
adb shell cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -i qualcomm