NVIDIA Display Driver CVE-2026-24187

The attacker must already have local low-privileged code execution on a Linux host that has the NVIDIA proprietary display driver loaded and exposes its character device nodes (/dev/nvidia*, /dev/nvidiactl, /dev/nvidia-uvm) with access permissions that include the attacker's account, which is the default on most desktop, workstation, and GPU-compute Linux deployments. In vGPU deployments, the Guest Driver variant is triggerable from inside a guest VM by a local user with driver access, allowing tenant-to-guest-kernel escalation. Limiting factors per CVSS AV:L/PR:L are that remote network-only attackers cannot reach the vulnerable code path, no UI interaction is required, and systems where /dev/nvidia* access is restricted to a hardened group or where the driver is not loaded are not exploitable.

The CVSS vector AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H paints a clear picture of a high-impact local kernel bug: any authenticated user on the system can trigger it with low complexity, and the scope change reflects breakout from user privileges to kernel/root. However, EPSS at 0.01% (1st percentile) and SSVC reporting Exploitation: none and Automatable: no indicate no observed in-the-wild use and a low likelihood of weaponized mass exploitation, consistent with the local-only attack vector that limits remote opportunistic targeting. SSVC Technical Impact: total aligns with the CIA-triad H/H/H rating. Because the driver runs in kernel space, this is still a credible priority for multi-tenant Linux hosts, vGPU/cloud environments where untrusted guest users share GPU infrastructure, and shared HPC/AI workstations - but for single-user desktop installs the practical risk is lower.

A low-privileged local user on a shared Linux workstation, HPC node, or container host with the NVIDIA driver loaded opens an NVIDIA device node and issues a sequence of ioctl/mmap calls that triggers the use-after-free condition in the driver. By racing freed object reallocation with controlled kernel data, the attacker corrupts kernel memory to escalate to root or hijack kernel execution flow, achieving full host compromise; no public exploit identified at time of analysis, but the local AC:L bug class is historically tractable for skilled attackers.