CVE-2025-47316: Qualcomm Aqt1000 Race Condition Flaw

CVE-2025-47316 Overview

CVE-2025-47316 is a double free memory corruption vulnerability affecting a broad range of Qualcomm firmware components, including FastConnect Wi-Fi/Bluetooth subsystems, Snapdragon compute platforms, WCD audio codecs, and WSA smart speaker amplifiers. The flaw occurs when multiple threads race to set the timestamp store, causing the same memory region to be freed twice. Exploitation requires local access with low privileges and can lead to compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability on affected devices. Qualcomm addressed the issue in the September 2025 Security Bulletin.

Critical Impact
A local attacker who wins the race condition can trigger heap corruption in firmware, enabling privilege escalation, arbitrary code execution in the affected component, or denial of service across dozens of Qualcomm chipsets used in laptops, wireless modules, and audio subsystems.

Affected Products

Qualcomm FastConnect 6200, 6700, 6800, 6900, and 7800 firmware
Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3, 8c, 8cx, 8cx Gen 2 5G, and 8cx Gen 3 compute platforms
Qualcomm WCD9340/9341/9380/9385 audio codecs and WSA8810/8815/8830/8835/8840/8845/8845H amplifier firmware, plus AQT1000, QCA6391/6420/6430, and SC8380XP

Discovery Timeline

2025-09-24 - CVE-2025-47316 published to NVD
September 2025 - Qualcomm releases fix via the September 2025 Security Bulletin
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-47316

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is classified under CWE-415: Double Free. It manifests in the timestamp store logic of the affected Qualcomm firmware components. When two or more threads execute the timestamp-setting routine concurrently, both threads observe the same allocated pointer, and both proceed to release it via the memory allocator's free path. The second release operates on a pointer that has already been returned to the free list, corrupting allocator metadata.

Because the vulnerable code runs inside firmware on wireless, audio, and compute subsystems, successful exploitation can influence trusted execution flows adjacent to the OS kernel. The attack requires the attacker to already hold local, low-privileged code execution on the host and to reliably win a narrow scheduling window.

Root Cause

The timestamp store update path lacks proper synchronization primitives such as mutual exclusion locks or atomic compare-and-swap operations around the allocation lifecycle. Two threads can each pass the check that determines whether the store must be released and reinitialized, then both call the deallocation routine on the same object.

Attack Vector

Exploitation is local. An attacker with the ability to run code on the device drives concurrent operations that invoke the timestamp store path, for example by rapidly triggering firmware-facing IOCTLs or configuration writes from multiple threads. Winning the race causes a second free() on an already-released allocation, which an attacker can groom to overlap with attacker-controlled data to achieve write-what-where primitives inside firmware heap structures.

No public proof-of-concept exploit is available at the time of writing, and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-47316

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected crashes, resets, or watchdog events on Qualcomm FastConnect, WCD/WSA audio, or Snapdragon compute subsystems.
Kernel or driver logs indicating heap corruption, invalid free, or allocator assertions originating from Qualcomm firmware components.
Processes making abnormally high-frequency ioctl or sysfs writes against Qualcomm audio, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth device nodes from unprivileged users.

Detection Strategies

Monitor kernel ring buffer messages (dmesg) for double free, slab corruption, or KASAN reports referencing Qualcomm driver stacks.
Correlate device firmware crash dumps and subsystem restart telemetry with the local user context that triggered them.
Baseline expected concurrency against Qualcomm device interfaces and flag threads that issue rapid, parallel calls to the same firmware-facing endpoint.

Monitoring Recommendations

Ingest endpoint telemetry, driver crash logs, and kernel oops events into a centralized analytics platform for correlation.
Track firmware and driver versions across the fleet to identify systems still running pre-September 2025 Qualcomm firmware.
Alert on privilege escalation attempts that immediately follow subsystem crashes on Snapdragon-based endpoints.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-47316

Immediate Actions Required

Apply the Qualcomm firmware updates delivered through OEM channels referencing the September 2025 Qualcomm Security Bulletin.
Inventory all endpoints, laptops, and IoT devices that ship with the affected FastConnect, Snapdragon compute, WCD, or WSA components.
Restrict local access to sensitive endpoints and enforce least-privilege on user accounts that can interact with Qualcomm device interfaces.

Patch Information

Qualcomm published fixes for CVE-2025-47316 in the Qualcomm Security Bulletin September 2025. The patch adds proper synchronization around the timestamp store update path to prevent concurrent threads from freeing the same allocation. Firmware must be delivered by device OEMs; consult vendor advisories from laptop, tablet, and IoT manufacturers that integrate the affected Qualcomm silicon.

Workarounds

Limit interactive shell access on affected devices to trusted administrators only, since exploitation requires local code execution.
Where feasible, disable unused Qualcomm subsystems (for example, Bluetooth or auxiliary audio) via OS-level controls to reduce reachable attack surface until firmware is updated.
Enforce application allow-listing to block unsigned or untrusted binaries from invoking Qualcomm driver interfaces.

bash

# Example: enumerate Qualcomm firmware versions on Linux endpoints
for fw in /sys/class/firmware/*/name; do
    echo "---- $fw ----"
    cat "$fw" 2>/dev/null | grep -iE 'qca|wcn|wcd|wsa|fastconnect|snapdragon'
done

# Example: restrict access to Qualcomm audio/Wi-Fi device nodes
chmod 660 /dev/snd/* 2>/dev/null
chown root:audio /dev/snd/* 2>/dev/null