Description

An issue was discovered in camera in Samsung Mobile Processor Exynos 1330, 1380, 1480, 2400, 1580, 2500, 2600, and 1680. In the camera driver, a Time-of-Check Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) race condition leads to out-of-bounds access.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "2.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-14T03:16:36.607Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-14T03:16:36.607Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A critical Time-of-Check Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability exists within the camera driver of specific Samsung Mobile Processors, including the Exynos 1330, 1380, 1480, 2400, 1580, 2500, 2600, and 1680.\nThis vulnerability arises from improper synchronization during memory access operations, potentially leading to out-of-bounds (OOB) memory access.\nSuccessful exploitation of this flaw can result in unauthorized memory read/write operations, potentially leading to kernel-level privilege escalation, arbitrary code execution, or system instability.\nThe vulnerability is localized to the camera driver, typically requiring the attacker to have already gained a foothold on the device with the privileges necessary to interact with the camera driver interface.\nGiven the nature of the flaw, it poses a significant risk to the integrity and confidentiality of the affected mobile devices, as it allows for subverting kernel security boundaries.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability is rooted in a race condition within the kernel-mode camera driver of the affected Exynos processors. Specifically, the driver implementation fails to perform atomic validation of memory pointers or structures used during cross-boundary data transfers between user-space and kernel-space.\nIn a typical TOCTOU scenario, the driver checks a specific parameter—such as a pointer, buffer size, or length field—provided by user-space, validates it against security constraints, and subsequently performs an action based on that validated value.\nThe race condition occurs if the attacker can modify the validated memory location in user-space after the 'Check' phase but before the 'Use' phase. Because the driver does not maintain an immutable copy of the validated data or utilize sufficient locking mechanisms (e.g., mutexes, spinlocks, or atomic read operations) to ensure that the memory remains unchanged during the operational window, the subsequent 'Use' phase operates on malicious or corrupted data.\nThis mismatch allows for out-of-bounds access. An attacker can supply a legitimate value for the initial check to pass security validation and, during the infinitesimal time interval before the driver uses the value for a memory operation, substitute it with an out-of-bounds pointer or an excessive buffer length.\nThe driver then unknowingly performs a read or write operation at an unintended memory location. If successfully exploited, this provides a primitive for arbitrary kernel read/write, which can be leveraged to bypass kernel protections, overwrite security-critical data structures (e.g., cred structures, kernel function pointers), or install malicious payloads with elevated privileges.\nExploitation requires the attacker to execute a crafted application or gain control over a process with sufficient permissions to issue IOCTLs or other IPC commands to the vulnerable camera driver component. The temporal requirement for triggering the race condition can often be overcome through heap spraying or cache-thrashing techniques designed to extend the timing window between the check and use phases, increasing the probability of success."
}