CVE Alert: CVE-2025-21476 – Qualcomm, Inc. – Snapdragon

Risk verdict

High risk of local memory corruption in the Trusted Virtual Machine during handshake, with potential full device compromise; exploitation requires local access and no user interaction.

Why this matters

Snapdragon TEEs are widespread across mobile and IoT deployments; an attacker with local foothold could escalate privileges, exfiltrate data, or disrupt services. The high impact across confidentiality, integrity and availability means substantial business risk for devices relying on these components.

Most likely attack path

Preconditions are local access to the device and low privileges; no user interaction is required. An attacker could trigger the TEE handshake to induce a buffer overflow, potentially escaping to the OS/kernel and gaining persistent control or data access.

Who is most exposed

Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs in mobile, consumer IoT and industrial units, especially where TrustZone/TEE-backed secure operations are relied upon.

Detection ideas

• Recurrent TrustZone/TEE faults or kernel panics linked to handshake activity
• Crash dumps or memory corruption errors referencing handshake/TEE code
• Unusual or repeated handshake failures without obvious user action
• Anomalous local processes attempting handshake interactions
• Correlated device reboot loops or degraded service following handshake attempts

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply vendor firmware/driver updates via OTA as soon as available
• Restrict local access and tighten app privileges affecting the handshake surface
• Enable strict input validation and tamper-evident logging around TEE interactions
• Monitor for TrustZone/TEE faults and collect memory crash dumps for analysis
• Plan staged change-management rollout with testing and a backout path; document risk and update schedules
• Treat as high-priority due to CVSS 7.8 and potential impact when patched (no KEV/EPSS indicators provided)