Description

In Audio HAL, there is a possible escalation of privilege due to use after free. This could lead to local escalation of privilege if a malicious actor has already obtained the System privilege. User interaction is not needed for exploitation. Patch ID: ALPS11191981; Issue ID: MSV-9125.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "6.7",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-07T02:17:19.360Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-07T02:17:19.360Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A critical Use-After-Free (UAF) vulnerability has been identified within the Audio Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL).\nThis memory corruption flaw allows a local attacker who has already compromised the System-level privilege context to potentially escalate permissions or disrupt system stability.\nThe vulnerability resides in the way the Audio HAL manages memory objects, specifically involving race conditions or improper lifecycle management during audio stream operations.\nExploitation does not require user interaction, making it a latent threat for systems where an initial breach of the System service has occurred.\nThe impact is significant, as successful exploitation enables further unauthorized operations beyond the initial System-level access, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution within the context of the Audio HAL or persistent compromise of audio-related system functions.\nThe vulnerability is tracked under Issue ID MSV-9125 and Patch ID ALPS11191981.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability is a Use-After-Free (UAF) condition stemming from improper pointer handling within the Audio HAL implementation.\nIn scenarios involving multi-threaded audio processing, memory allocated for audio buffers or state descriptors may be freed prematurely while a reference to the memory address remains active within the handler's execution flow.\nSpecifically, the Audio HAL manages object lifecycles via shared pointers or reference counting mechanisms that, under specific race conditions or asynchronous signal handling, fail to synchronize the deallocation of resources.\nWhen an attacker, operating with System-level privileges, triggers an audio operation that forces this premature deallocation, the internal state of the HAL is left with a dangling pointer.\nSubsequent access to this dangling pointer allows the attacker to manipulate the memory heap structure.\nIf the attacker can influence the contents of the freed memory block—often through heap spray techniques or by triggering allocations that occupy the exact memory address previously held by the freed object—they can effectively control the data utilized by the HAL when the dangling pointer is dereferenced.\nThis leads to an arbitrary read/write primitive or control flow redirection, as the HAL attempts to execute logic based on the corrupted object data.\nThe attack flow follows a predictable pattern: first, the attacker targets the Audio HAL interface using established IPC mechanisms accessible to the System user. Second, by flooding the interface with specific control messages or rapid stream state transitions, the attacker induces the UAF condition.\nThird, the attacker leverages the timing window to replace the freed object with malicious data. Finally, the HAL dereferences the dangling pointer to process the attacker-controlled data, enabling the escalation of privileges or execution of arbitrary code within the HAL process memory space.\nGiven that this occurs within the Audio HAL, the vulnerability provides a vector to cross privilege boundaries where the HAL typically operates with restricted hardware access, effectively bypassing existing security controls governing system-level audio resources."
}