Threats / Arm / CVE-2022-38181
CVE-2022-38181
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Arm Mali Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) vulnerability
Arm Mali GPU kernel driver contains a use-after-free vulnerability allowing non-privileged users to escalate to root privilege or disclose sensitive information.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
A use-after-free flaw in the Mali GPU kernel driver enables privilege escalation and information disclosure from unprivileged contexts. Active exploitation in the wild increases risk despite moderate EPSS score.
CISA KEV Yes · 2023-03-304EPSS 0.12588 (verify live)5Exploit Public PoC6CVSS 8.8 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total3
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Public proof-of-concept exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
2 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-03-30).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.12588 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 8.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Arm, Mali Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-416 Use After Free — weakness family: Memory safety.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 156 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I execute code as an unprivileged user on a system with a vulnerable Mali GPU driver.
Business
An attacker gains initial foothold on devices running Mali GPUs without requiring elevated permissions.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I trigger the use-after-free condition in the kernel driver to corrupt memory state.
Business
The vulnerability creates a window for memory manipulation that bypasses normal access controls.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I escalate my privileges to root level or read kernel memory containing sensitive data.
Business
Complete system compromise occurs, granting attackers full control or access to confidential information.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05