CVE Alert: CVE-2025-27077 – Qualcomm, Inc. – Snapdragon

Risk verdict

High risk with local exploitation potential; immediate attention warranted, subject to confirmation of KEV/EPSS indicators (see mitigation notes).

Why this matters

The flaw permits memory corruption from locally triggered input within a guest VM, with high impact to confidentiality, integrity and availability. In automotive contexts, exploitation could affect safety‑critical or backend VM functions, potentially disrupting operations or exposing sensitive data during vehicle maintenance or servicing.

Most likely attack path

An attacker with local access to the platform could craft inputs to the guest VM’s messaging path to trigger the vulnerability. Given low attack complexity, low privileges required and no UI interaction, automated abuse within the module is plausible. Because the scope is unchanged, the impact is contained within the affected security domain, though that domain may house critical processes.

Who is most exposed

Vehicles deploying Snapdragon Automotive platforms with QNX guest VMs and exposed local interfaces (diagnostics, maintenance, OT portals) are at greatest risk, especially where local access controls are weak or maintenance workflows are insecure.

Detection ideas

• Crashes, kernel or user-space memory faults in the guest VM; crash dumps or panics.
• Unusual or malformed messages processed by the guest VM; increased message latency or rejection patterns.
• Memory allocator errors or heap corruption signs in VM logs.
• Repeated restart of the guest VM or related watchdog alerts following specific messages.
• Anomalous access patterns to memory regions previously freed.

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply vendor firmware/OS updates for the affected Snapdragon/QNX stack as soon as available; prioritise patching in test-sandboxes before rollout.
• If KEV is true or EPSS ≥ 0.5, treat as Priority 1; otherwise escalate to high priority with a fixed patch window.
• Enforce strict local-access controls; minimize exposed maintenance interfaces; segment the guest VM from critical domains.
• Implement input validation and memory-safety hardening in the messaging path; enable memory-sanitising or fault-tolerance features if supported.
• Coordinate with safety certs and change-management to validate fixes in vehicle simulations and field tests.