CVE-2026-25284 in Snapdragon Compute
Summary
by MITRE • 09/17/2026
Information Disclosure when a pointer is reused after being deallocated.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/17/2026
The vulnerability described constitutes a classic use-after-free condition that results in information disclosure, representing a critical failure in memory management safety within the affected software component. This flaw arises from an improper handling of dynamic memory allocation and deallocation cycles, specifically where a pointer variable continues to reference a block of heap memory after it has been freed by the system or application logic. In standard programming practices, once memory is released via functions such as free in C or delete in C++, the operating system marks that region as available for reuse but does not immediately overwrite its contents with zeros or random data. Consequently, the pointer retains a valid address to stale data until another process or thread allocates new information into that same physical memory location. This scenario creates a window of opportunity where an attacker can exploit the dangling reference to read sensitive content that was previously stored in that buffer but is no longer logically owned by the application.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability aligns directly with CWE-416, Use After Free, and often intersects with CWE-200, Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor. The core issue lies in the lack of nullification or invalidation of the pointer immediately following the deallocation operation. When the application subsequently dereferences this stale pointer without verifying its validity against current memory state metadata, it retrieves whatever data currently resides at that address. If the timing is precise and the attacker can influence or predict which new data occupies that freed block, they may retrieve cryptographic keys, session tokens, user credentials, or other proprietary information previously held in that buffer. This type of exploit does not necessarily require code execution privileges but rather relies on memory corruption techniques to trigger the read operation at a specific moment during program execution.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant as it facilitates unauthorized access to confidential data without direct authentication bypasses. Attackers can leverage this flaw through local or remote vectors depending on how the vulnerable function is exposed within the application architecture. For instance, if the affected component processes untrusted input that triggers memory deallocation followed by a subsequent read operation, an attacker might craft specific inputs to control the heap layout and force the reuse of sensitive data into the freed region. This leads to potential breaches of confidentiality, violating regulatory compliance standards such as GDPR or HIPAA depending on the nature of the leaked information. Furthermore, in complex environments involving multi-threaded applications, race conditions can exacerbate this issue, allowing concurrent threads to access the same deallocated memory simultaneously, thereby increasing the reliability and success rate of exploitation attempts against the target system.
Mitigation strategies must focus on enforcing strict memory lifecycle management protocols within the codebase. Developers should immediately set pointers to NULL after calling free or delete operations to prevent accidental dereferencing of stale addresses. Additionally, implementing static analysis tools during the software development life cycle can help identify potential use-after-free patterns before deployment. Runtime protection mechanisms such as Address Sanitizer (ASan) in debugging builds or heap hardening techniques like glibc's tcache consolidation controls and ASLR randomization can also reduce the exploitability of this flaw by making it harder for attackers to predict memory layouts and detect freed blocks. Regular security audits focusing on pointer arithmetic and dynamic memory handling are essential to ensure that all allocated resources are properly tracked, validated, and securely cleared upon termination or deallocation to maintain system integrity and data confidentiality.