MediaTek Chip Vulnerabilities Allow Attackers to Gain Elevated Access

MediaTek has disclosed three critical security vulnerabilities affecting dozens of its chipsets, potentially allowing attackers to gain elevated system privileges on affected devices.

The vulnerabilities, detailed in the company’s August 2025 Product Security Bulletin, impact a wide range of MediaTek processors used in smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices running Android, openWRT, Yocto, RDK-B, and Zephyr operating systems.

The most severe vulnerability, designated CVE-2025-20696 with a “High” severity rating, affects the Download Agent (DA) component and could enable local privilege escalation through an out-of-bounds write attack.

This flaw requires physical access to the device and user interaction for exploitation, but no additional execution privileges are needed once an attacker gains access.

Two additional vulnerabilities, CVE-2025-20697 and CVE-2025-20698, both rated as “Medium” severity, affect the Power Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) component.

These flaws could allow privilege escalation if a malicious actor has already obtained system-level privileges, and notably, they require no user interaction for exploitation.

The vulnerabilities stem from missing bounds checks that enable out-of-bounds write operations, classified under the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE-787).

MediaTek conducted severity assessments using the Common Vulnerability Scoring System version 3.1 (CVSS v3.1) framework.

MediaTek emphasized that device Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) were notified of these issues and provided corresponding security patches at least two months before the bulletin’s publication on August 4, 2025.

The company stated it is currently unaware of any active exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild, though the disclosure highlights the ongoing security challenges facing mobile device ecosystems.

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