CVE Alert: CVE-2025-21042 – Samsung Mobile – Samsung Mobile Devices

Risk verdict

Critical risk with active exploitation; treat as priority 1 and urgent to remediate.

Why this matters

The flaw enables remote code execution via a network-delivered input processed by a media codec, with total impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability. In practice, attacker goals include device compromise, data exfiltration and potential persistence within the attack surface of mobile devices, including enterprise fleets and consumer devices.

Most likely attack path

Initial access over the network delivering crafted media payloads; exploitation requires user interaction to trigger the payload. No privileges are required, and the scope remains unchanged, suggesting the attacker operates within the affected component’s context but could reproducibly crash or corrupt memory to achieve code execution. Lateral movement is likely constrained by component boundaries, but successful exploitation could enable persistent control within the compromised process.

Who is most exposed

Mobile devices running supported Android releases with media-processing capabilities are at risk, particularly fleets managed via MDM or used in environments where devices routinely fetch or render remote media.

Detection ideas

• Crashes or memory corruption events in the image codec library during media processing
• Anomalous memory writes or out-of-bounds symptoms in crash dumps/logs
• Network-driven payloads affecting media processing pipelines
• Unusual process creation or privilege escalation attempts linked to the affected component
• Indicators in security telemetry linking to CVE-2025-21042 exploitation patterns

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply vendor security update (SMR Apr-2025 Release) to all affected devices; ensure patch compliance in MDM.
• If patching is delayed, enforce compensating controls: disable remote media payload processing where feasible; restrict network inputs to trusted sources; isolate affected components.
• Accelerate change-management and device-redeployment where feasible; review and enhance monitoring for codec-related anomalies.
• Treat as priority 1 given KEV/active exploitation; communicate remediation deadline across security and IT teams.