Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
-
AccessGain unprivileged local access
-
DeliverySend crafted ioctl to NVIDIA kernel driver
-
ExploitTrigger use-after-free on freed kernel object
-
ExecutionReclaim allocation via heap grooming
-
PersistCorrupt kernel memory
-
ImpactEscalate to root or leak kernel memory
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Memory lifecycle management
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Execution, Privilege Escalation The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Requires local access to a host running the affected NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux with an already-authenticated unprivileged account (PR:L), plus the ability to interact with the GPU kernel-mode device interface (e.g., /dev/nvidia* ioctls). No user interaction is needed (UI:N) and no network path exists (AV:L), so remote exploitation is not possible. Exploitation is limited by needing a foothold on the machine, by the reliability challenges typical of kernel UAF exploitation (heap grooming and race timing), and by driver version - only affected GeForce, RTX/Quadro/NVS, and Tesla driver branches are impacted. The 'Guest Driver' designation makes the scenario most relevant to virtualized/vGPU and multi-tenant datacenter deployments where an untrusted low-privileged guest can reach the shared GPU driver. |
| Impact | This is a genuine, if not urgent, local-privilege-escalation risk. The CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H, base 7.8 HIGH) is internally consistent with the description: a use-after-free (CWE-416) in the NVIDIA Linux GPU driver kernel-mode layer, triggerable by an already-authenticated unprivileged local user (PR:L), with high confidentiality, integrity and availability impact reflecting the full range of stated outcomes (code execution, DoS, privilege escalation, information disclosure, data tampering). Because the attack vector is LOCAL (AV:L), this is not remotely exploitable and requires the attacker to already have code-execution as some user on the host - it is a privilege-escalation/local-attack primitive, not an initial-access vector. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public exploit code are present in the supplied data, so per the precision rules this is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis'; there is also no SSVC decision data provided. Kernel UAFs in GPU drivers are historically weaponizable but non-trivial to exploit reliably (heap grooming, race timing), which the AC:L rating arguably understates for a UAF, though NVIDIA rates the trigger itself as low-complexity. Real priority is MODERATE and concentrated in multi-tenant contexts (the 'Guest Driver' tag and Tesla CPE point to virtualized/vGPU and datacenter deployments where an untrusted low-privileged guest sharing the GPU stack is exactly the threat model). |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An unprivileged local user (or a low-privileged workload in a shared/virtualized GPU environment) issues crafted ioctl or device interactions to the NVIDIA kernel-mode driver that trigger a use-after-free on a freed kernel object. By grooming the kernel heap to reclaim the freed allocation with attacker-controlled data, they corrupt kernel memory to escalate to root, leak kernel memory, or crash the system. No public proof-of-concept is identified in the supplied data. |
Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.
Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Sep 30, 2026
Local privilege escalation in the NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux allows an authenticated unprivileged user to trigger a use-after-free in the kernel mode layer, potentially achieving code execution, denial of service, privilege escalation, information disclosure, and data tampering. The flaw is reachable only by a locally authenticated low-privileged account (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) that can issue ioctls to the GPU kernel-mode device interface; there is no remote attack path and no user interaction is required once a foothold exists. The 'Guest Driver' classification makes the issue most consequential in virtualized/vGPU and multi-tenant datacenter environments, where a low-privileged guest can reach the shared GPU driver. No public exploit identified at time of analysis, and the vendor advisory is the authoritative source for fixed driver versions.
RemediationAI
Patch available per vendor advisory: because the input does not supply an exact fixed driver version, the authoritative remediation is to determine the affected driver branch from the NVIDIA advisory at https://github.com/NVIDIA/product-security/tree/main/2026/5861 and upgrade each exposed GeForce, RTX/Quadro/NVS, or Tesla Linux driver to the version NVIDIA lists as fixed for that branch; do not rely on a version number not stated in the advisory. Until upgrades can be completed, the practical compensating control is to reduce who can reach the kernel-mode interface that triggers the UAF: restrict access to the /dev/nvidia* device nodes (tighten permissions/ownership and place only trusted accounts in the relevant group), since the vulnerability is unreachable without a local authenticated principal able to issue ioctls to those nodes - the trade-off is that legitimate non-root GPU workloads (compute jobs, containerized processes, X/Wayland sessions) lose access unless explicitly granted. In virtualized or multi-tenant environments, confine untrusted workloads to guests whose GPU driver stack has been updated first and rely on hypervisor-level isolation rather than guest credentials, acknowledging that a shared/vGPU configuration still places the host-side driver within the threat model. Note the assessed exploitation conditions: PR:L means a foothold is required, AV:L means there is no remote path, and kernel UAF reliability depends on heap grooming and race timing, so detection should focus on unusual ioctl activity and local privilege-escalation behavior from low-privileged accounts rather than on network-facing indicators.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 3 packages in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
The vulnerability is a use-after-free (CWE-416) in the kernel mode layer (kernel-space portion) of the NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux. The kernel mode layer exposes GPU operations to user space through device nodes such as /dev/nvidia* and their ioctl interfaces; an unprivileged caller can induce the driver to free an object and then reference it again, which in kernel space generally means corrupted memory management with a range of downstream outcomes. The unprivileged-to-kernel (and, in the 'Guest Driver' case, unprivileged-guest-to-host-driver) boundary explains the elevated impact ratings across confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H). Successful exploitation typically requires careful heap grooming and race timing to control the contents of the reallocated memory, which is why kernel UAF exploits of this class are powerful but not always reliable. Affected branches span consumer and professional/datacenter silicon: GeForce, RTX/Quadro/NVS, and Tesla, as reflected in the CPE data (cpe:2.3:a:nvidia:geforce, cpe:2.3:a:nvidia:rtx,_quadro,_nvs, cpe:2.3:a:nvidia:tesla). In virtualized deployments, the 'Guest Driver' tag indicates the vulnerable code is reachable from inside a guest VM sharing a physical GPU, making isolation between tenants a direct security concern.
Know when Geforce gets its next vulnerability
- Watch products and get an email when something new is published
- Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
No credit card · 7-day full trial
Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Local unprivileged trigger of a kernel-mode UAF (AV:L/PR:L/UI:N) yielding code execution and full C/I/A impact within the OS scope (S:U).
Primary rating from Vendor (nvidia).
CVSS VectorVendor: nvidia
DescriptionCVE.org
NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux contains a vulnerability in the kernel mode layer where an unprivileged user could cause a use-after-free. A successful exploit of this vulnerability might lead to code execution, denial of service, escalation of privileges, information disclosure, and data tampering.
Articles & Coverage 3
Executive ViewAI
The NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux contains a high-severity local privilege escalation vulnerability that allows an authenticated low-privileged user to execute code in the kernel, potentially compromising data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. This is particularly concerning for organizations running virtualized or multi-tenant GPU environments, where a guest user could break isolation and affect other tenants or the host. Leadership should prioritize mitigating this risk because a successful exploit could lead to full system compromise and service disruption.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis; interim mitigations include restricting local access to GPU kernel-mode devices (e.g., via strict file permissions or container isolation), enforcing least privilege for local accounts, monitoring for anomalous ioctl calls or driver crashes, and isolating GPU workloads in multi-tenant environments using hardware partitioning or separate hosts where feasible.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Use-after-free vulnerabilities occur when a program continues to access memory through a pointer after that memory has been deallocated.
Memory corruption occurs when a program writes data beyond the boundaries of allocated memory regions or accesses memory in unintended ways, violating the integrity of the process's address space.
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Remote Code Execution represents the critical moment when an attacker successfully runs arbitrary code on a target system without physical access.
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Local privilege escalation and code execution in the NVIDIA Display Driver for Linux (GeForce, RTX/Quadro/NVS, Tesla, an
An out-of-bounds read in the kernel-mode layer of NVIDIA GPU Display Driver on Windows and Linux allows a local, authent
An out-of-bounds write in NVIDIA NVAPI for Windows allows a locally authenticated attacker holding standard user privile
Type confusion in the kernel-mode layer of the NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux allows a local low-privileged user (C
Local privilege escalation in NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Windows (CUDA driver component) allows an authenticated atta
Local privilege escalation in NVIDIA Display Driver for Windows allows an authenticated low-privileged user to trigger a
Local privilege escalation and potential code execution in NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Windows and Linux arise from a
Local privilege escalation in NVIDIA Display Driver for Windows and Linux allows an unprivileged local attacker to trigg
Local privilege escalation and memory corruption in NVIDIA GPU Display Driver on Windows and Linux, affecting GeForce, R
Local privilege escalation in the NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux allows an authenticated, unprivileged user to trig
Local privilege escalation in the kernel-mode layer of the NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux allows an unprivileged lo
Privilege escalation in NVIDIA's GPU Display Driver for Windows lets a local, low-privileged authenticated user bypass a
Same weakness CWE-416 – Use After Free
View allVendor StatusVendor
SUSE
Severity: Important| Product | Status |
|---|---|
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.2 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.2 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 16.0 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 16.0 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.3 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy LTS 4.3 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.3 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server LTS 4.3 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.3 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server LTS 4.3 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap Micro 5.5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for NVIDIA 16.1 | Affected |
EUVD-2026-90115
GHSA-w7m4-ggcg-x3gh
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB