Threats / Qualcomm / CVE-2026-21385
CVE-2026-21385
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
Qualcomm Multiple Chipsets vulnerability
Multiple Qualcomm chipsets contain a memory corruption vulnerability in memory allocation alignment handling, enabling potential code execution or denial of service.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
A memory corruption flaw in Qualcomm chipset memory allocation routines allows attackers to corrupt heap or stack memory through misaligned allocation requests, potentially achieving arbitrary code execution or system crash.
CISA KEV Yes · 2026-03-035EPSS 0.01287 (verify live)6CVSS 7.83CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
5 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 2026-03-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.01287 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Qualcomm, Multiple Chipsets. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-190 Integer Overflow — weakness family: Memory safety.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); 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 1 day 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 craft a malicious input or trigger a code path that requests memory allocation with specific alignment parameters to cause integer overflow or buffer overflow.
Business
Device firmware or operating system stability is compromised, creating vulnerability to remote exploitation.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I exploit the corrupted memory state to overwrite adjacent heap structures or function pointers to redirect execution flow.
Business
Attacker gains code execution within the chipset context, potentially accessing sensitive hardware resources or user data.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I leverage chipset-level code execution to escalate privileges or persist across device reboots.
Business
Device security perimeter is breached; user trust and data confidentiality are compromised across all applications relying on the chipset.
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
Coverage & confidence
— what we know, and what we don’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by qualcommCNA
Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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