CVE-2025-20037 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2025-20037
Vulnerability Scoring

7.2
/10
Very High Risk

Highly exploitable, CVE-2025-20037 poses a critical security risk that could lead to severe breaches.

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity: High
    Exploits require significant effort and special conditions.
  • Attack Vector: Local
    Vulnerability requires local system access.
  • Privileges Required: High
    High-level privileges are required for exploitation.
  • Scope: Changed
    Successful exploitation can impact components beyond the vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2025-20037 Details

Status: Awaiting Analysis

Last updated: 🕠 13 Aug 2025, 17:34 UTC
Originally published on: 🕔 12 Aug 2025, 17:15 UTC

Time between publication and last update: 1 days

CVSS Release: version 3

CVSS3 Source

secure@intel.com

CVSS3 Type

Secondary

CVSS3 Vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H

CVE-2025-20037 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2025-20037: Time-of-check time-of-use race condition in firmware for some Intel(R) Converged Security and Management Engine may allow a privileged user to potentially enable escalation of privilege via local access.

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2025-20037

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2025-20037 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2025-20037

The exploitability of CVE-2025-20037 is influenced by multiple factors. Security teams should analyze system configurations and apply appropriate countermeasures to mitigate threats.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2025-20037, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2025-20037, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: None
    CVE-2025-20037 has no significant impact on data confidentiality.
  • Integrity: High
    CVE-2025-20037 could allow unauthorized modifications to data, potentially affecting system reliability and trust.
  • Availability: High
    CVE-2025-20037 can disrupt system operations, potentially causing complete denial of service (DoS).

CVE-2025-20037 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-367

CAPEC Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

  • Leveraging Race Conditions via Symbolic Links CAPEC-27 This attack leverages the use of symbolic links (Symlinks) in order to write to sensitive files. An attacker can create a Symlink link to a target file not otherwise accessible to them. When the privileged program tries to create a temporary file with the same name as the Symlink link, it will actually write to the target file pointed to by the attackers' Symlink link. If the attacker can insert malicious content in the temporary file they will be writing to the sensitive file by using the Symlink. The race occurs because the system checks if the temporary file exists, then creates the file. The attacker would typically create the Symlink during the interval between the check and the creation of the temporary file.
  • Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions CAPEC-29 This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. A typical example is file access. The adversary can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that they would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the adversary could replace or modify the file, causing the application to behave unexpectedly.

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