Introduction
Remote attackers can escalate privileges on unpatched Android 16 devices without any user interaction, simply by exploiting a flaw in the Skia graphics engine. This vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-32318, highlights the ongoing risk posed by memory management errors in core system libraries that process untrusted content at scale.
Skia is Google’s open source 2D graphics library, integral to rendering in Android, Chrome, and other major Google products. Billions of devices rely on Skia for UI and graphics operations, making vulnerabilities in this component highly impactful across the global technology landscape.
Technical Information
CVE-2025-32318 is a heap buffer overflow in the Skia graphics engine, which is responsible for 2D rendering in Android. The vulnerability arises when Skia fails to validate buffer boundaries before writing to heap-allocated memory during certain graphics operations. This can result in out-of-bounds writes, potentially corrupting adjacent memory structures and enabling remote privilege escalation.
The flaw is categorized as CWE-122 (Heap-based Buffer Overflow). Exploitation does not require user interaction or additional execution privileges, and can be triggered remotely. Technical analysis of similar Skia vulnerabilities (such as CVE-2023-6345) demonstrates that attackers may craft malicious graphics data that causes Skia to miscalculate buffer sizes, leading to memory corruption and privilege escalation. The root cause is insufficient bounds checking in Skia's memory management routines during graphics processing.
No public code snippets or detailed vulnerable code for CVE-2025-32318 are currently available. The vulnerability is addressed in the Android 16 System component as a critical elevation of privilege issue.
Patch Information
In the Android 16 release, several security vulnerabilities have been addressed to enhance the platform's robustness. Notably, the following issues have been resolved:
- CVE-2025-32320: An elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Framework component.
- CVE-2024-0028: An information disclosure vulnerability in the Framework component.
- CVE-2025-32318: A critical elevation of privilege vulnerability in the System component.
These vulnerabilities have been mitigated through comprehensive patches integrated into the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The patches involve code modifications that rectify the identified security flaws, thereby preventing potential exploitation. For instance, the fix for CVE-2025-32320 includes updating permission checks to ensure that unauthorized access is effectively blocked.
To benefit from these security enhancements, users are encouraged to update their devices to Android 16 with a security patch level of 2025-07-01 or later. This update incorporates all the necessary patches to protect against the aforementioned vulnerabilities.
Patch source: Android 16 Security Bulletin
Affected Systems and Versions
- Android 16 prior to security patch level 2025-07-01
- Devices running Android 16 with unpatched Skia components in the System context
- All configurations that rely on the default Skia graphics library as provided in the Android Open Source Project
Vendor Security History
Google is responsible for Android and the Skia graphics engine. Skia is a widely used open source 2D graphics library powering rendering in Android, Chrome, and other Google products. Google has a history of addressing Skia vulnerabilities, including heap buffer overflows and integer overflows (for example, CVE-2023-6345, CVE-2024-1283). Google’s security response is generally prompt, with coordinated monthly bulletins and a mature vulnerability management process. Patch deployment speed can vary across manufacturers and carriers due to Android ecosystem fragmentation.