CVE-2025-23284: NVIDIA vGPU Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

CVE-2025-23284 Overview

CVE-2025-23284 is a stack buffer overflow vulnerability in the NVIDIA Virtual GPU (vGPU) Manager component of NVIDIA vGPU software. A malicious guest virtual machine can trigger the overflow through the vGPU Manager running on the host hypervisor. Successful exploitation may lead to code execution, denial of service, information disclosure, or data tampering on the host. The flaw is classified under [CWE-121] Stack-based Buffer Overflow and carries a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.8. The attack originates from a local, authenticated guest context and crosses the guest-to-host trust boundary, making it relevant to any multi-tenant virtualization environment using NVIDIA vGPU.

Critical Impact
A compromised guest VM can execute arbitrary code on the hypervisor host, breaking tenant isolation across all VMs sharing the physical GPU.

Affected Products

NVIDIA vGPU software - Virtual GPU Manager component
Hypervisor hosts running NVIDIA vGPU Manager
Guest virtual machines with NVIDIA vGPU drivers assigned

Discovery Timeline

2025-08-02 - CVE-2025-23284 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-23284

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability resides in the NVIDIA Virtual GPU Manager, the hypervisor-resident component that mediates GPU access between guest VMs and the physical device. A guest VM can send crafted input that the Virtual GPU Manager processes without sufficient bounds validation, leading to a stack-based buffer overflow inside the host process. Because the vGPU Manager operates with elevated privileges on the hypervisor, corrupting its stack can be leveraged to execute code in the host context, tamper with host memory, or crash the manager and deny service to co-tenant VMs. The confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact are all rated high, reflecting the crossing of the guest-to-host isolation boundary.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing or incorrect length validation on data supplied by the guest across the paravirtualized GPU interface. When the vGPU Manager copies attacker-controlled bytes into a fixed-size stack buffer, the write exceeds the allocated frame and overwrites adjacent stack data including saved return addresses and frame pointers. NVIDIA has not disclosed the specific handler or function involved. See the NVIDIA Support Answer for advisory details.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires local access to a guest VM with a low-privilege user context inside that guest. The attacker does not need host credentials, only the ability to interact with the vGPU driver interface exposed to the guest. User interaction is not required. The attacker issues crafted GPU commands or control-plane messages that reach the vGPU Manager on the host, triggering the overflow. Because the boundary crossed is the hypervisor isolation boundary, a single compromised tenant can affect all workloads on the same host.

No public proof-of-concept code is available. The vulnerability is described in prose because no verified exploit artifacts have been released. Refer to the vendor advisory for technical scope.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-23284

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected crashes, restarts, or hangs of the NVIDIA Virtual GPU Manager service on the hypervisor host
Hypervisor kernel logs or dmesg entries referencing faults in NVIDIA vGPU Manager modules
Guest VMs generating anomalously high volumes of vGPU control-plane traffic or malformed GPU commands
Unexplained privilege changes or new host processes spawned in proximity to guest GPU activity

Detection Strategies

Monitor host process integrity for the vGPU Manager binary and alert on unexpected child processes or code injection patterns
Baseline normal vGPU driver interaction rates per guest and flag statistical outliers
Correlate guest-side driver errors with host-side vGPU Manager fault events across the same time window

Monitoring Recommendations

Collect hypervisor host logs, NVIDIA vGPU Manager logs, and guest kernel logs into a centralized SIEM for cross-layer analysis
Enable auditing of hypervisor privileged operations and GPU passthrough interfaces
Alert on any Virtual GPU Manager service restart events that are not tied to scheduled maintenance

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-23284

Immediate Actions Required

Apply the NVIDIA vGPU software update referenced in the NVIDIA Support Answer to affected hypervisor hosts
Inventory all hypervisors running NVIDIA vGPU Manager and identify which VMs have vGPU profiles assigned
Restrict guest VM administrative access to trusted operators until patches are deployed

Patch Information

NVIDIA has released updated vGPU software addressing CVE-2025-23284. Consult the vendor advisory at NVIDIA Support Answer ID 5670 for the specific driver and vGPU Manager versions that contain the fix, and apply the update to both the host-side vGPU Manager and the matching guest drivers.

Workarounds

Isolate untrusted or multi-tenant workloads onto hypervisors that do not share GPUs with sensitive VMs until patching completes
Where feasible, temporarily detach vGPU profiles from untrusted guest VMs to remove the attack surface
Enforce least-privilege inside guest VMs to reduce the population of users able to attempt exploitation

bash

# Verify installed NVIDIA vGPU Manager version on the hypervisor host
nvidia-smi vgpu -q | grep -i version

# List active vGPU-enabled guest VMs to prioritize patching and isolation
nvidia-smi vgpu -q