CVE-2026-58859 in Android
Summary
by MITRE • 10/05/2026
In multiple places, there is a possible denial of service due to an uncaught exception. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed. User interaction is not needed for exploitation.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/05/2026
The vulnerability described represents a critical flaw within the software architecture where improper error handling mechanisms allow for a denial of service condition that can be leveraged into a more severe security breach. Specifically, an uncaught exception occurs in multiple code paths when processing specific inputs or system states. In robust software engineering practices, exceptions should always be caught and handled gracefully to maintain application stability. However, the absence of these protective measures means that any trigger causing such an exception will result in immediate process termination or a crash state. This lack of resilience is not merely a reliability issue but serves as a foundational weakness for further exploitation by malicious actors operating within the local environment.
The operational impact of this flaw extends beyond simple service disruption, primarily because it facilitates local privilege escalation without requiring additional execution privileges from the attacker. Typically, denial of service vulnerabilities are categorized under availability impacts, often mapped to CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption or similar categories depending on the resource being exhausted. However, in this specific context, the crash state induced by the uncaught exception likely leaves the system in an inconsistent memory state or triggers a fallback mechanism that bypasses standard security controls. This allows a low-privileged user to gain higher-level access rights, effectively compromising the integrity and confidentiality of the system. The ability to escalate privileges without needing additional execution privileges significantly lowers the barrier for entry, making this vulnerability highly exploitable by any local user account on the affected system.
From an attacker perspective, the lack of required user interaction is a critical factor that increases the severity rating of this CVE. Automated tools can easily probe these multiple code paths to trigger the exception repeatedly or at precise moments where the privilege escalation vector is active. This aligns with ATT&CK technique T1068: Exploitation for Privilege Escalation, specifically within the context of local exploitation. The attacker does not need social engineering or physical access beyond having a shell account; they can script the exploit to run in the background while performing other tasks, making detection difficult and remediation urgent.
Mitigation strategies must focus on both immediate patching and long-term architectural improvements. Developers should implement comprehensive exception handling blocks around all code segments that interact with external inputs or complex system calls. This includes validating input data types and lengths before processing to prevent unexpected states from arising in the first place. Furthermore, implementing strict memory management practices and using static analysis tools during the development lifecycle can help identify these uncaught exceptions early. For administrators unable to patch immediately, restricting user privileges through least-privilege principles or isolating services via containerization may reduce the blast radius of such an exploit until a permanent fix is deployed.