Introduction - Real-World Impact and Significance
Attackers can leverage a single misstep in NVIDIA's Display Driver to execute arbitrary code, escalate privileges, or tamper with data on millions of Windows and Linux systems. This vulnerability affects not just gaming PCs but also workstations and data center servers running AI and visualization workloads, making patching essential for both individuals and enterprises.
NVIDIA is a dominant force in the GPU industry, with its hardware and software powering consumer gaming, professional visualization, AI research, and cloud computing. The breadth of its product lines (GeForce, RTX, Quadro, NVS, Tesla) and deployment in critical infrastructure means vulnerabilities in NVIDIA drivers have wide-reaching consequences across the global tech landscape.
Technical Information
CVE-2025-23309 is a high-severity flaw (CVSS 8.2) classified under CWE-427 (Uncontrolled Search Path Element). The vulnerability is present in NVIDIA Display Drivers for Windows and Linux, as well as in vGPU and cloud gaming components. It arises from the driver's failure to specify a fully qualified path when loading certain DLLs. As a result, the Windows DLL search order is used, which includes user-writable directories early in the search sequence.
An attacker with the ability to write to a directory in the DLL search path can place a malicious DLL with the same name as a legitimate library expected by the NVIDIA driver. When the driver loads this DLL, the attacker's code is executed with the privileges of the driver process. Since GPU drivers often run with elevated or system-level privileges, successful exploitation can result in privilege escalation, arbitrary code execution, denial of service, or data tampering.
This vulnerability affects driver branches R580, R570, and R535, impacting a wide range of NVIDIA products including GeForce, RTX, Quadro, NVS, and Tesla. Both standalone drivers and virtual GPU (vGPU) environments are affected. No public code snippets or PoC are available as of this writing.
Patch Information
NVIDIA has released critical updates addressing CVE-2025-23309 across all affected platforms and driver branches. Users and organizations must update to the following versions or later:
Windows Drivers:
- R580: Update to 581.42
- R570: Update to 573.76
- R535: Update to 539.56
Linux Drivers:
- R580: Update to 580.95.05
- R570: Update to 570.195.03
- R535: Update to 535.274.02
vGPU Software (Virtual GPU Manager):
- R580: Update to 580.95.02
- R570: Update to 570.195.02
- R535: Update to 535.274.02
Cloud Gaming Software (Guest Driver):
- R580: Update to 580.95.05
- R570: Update to 570.195.03
- R535: Update to 535.274.02
NVIDIA strongly recommends immediate updates to these versions to mitigate exploitation risk. Official patch sources:
Affected Systems and Versions
Windows:
- GeForce, RTX, Quadro, NVS, Tesla
- R580: All versions prior to 581.42
- R570: All versions prior to 573.76
- R535: All versions prior to 539.56
Linux:
- GeForce, RTX, Quadro, NVS, Tesla
- R580: All versions prior to 580.95.05
- R570: All versions prior to 570.195.03
- R535: All versions prior to 535.274.02
vGPU Software (Virtual GPU Manager):
- R580: All versions up to and including August 2025 release
- R570: All versions up to and including August 2025 release
- R535: All versions up to and including August 2025 release
Cloud Gaming Software (Guest Driver):
- R580: All versions up to and including August 2025 release
- R570: All versions up to and including August 2025 release
- R535: All versions up to and including August 2025 release
Vendor Security History
NVIDIA maintains a regular cadence of security bulletins and has a history of addressing vulnerabilities in its GPU drivers, including privilege escalation, code execution, and information disclosure issues. The company coordinates patch releases across multiple driver branches and platforms. In October 2025, NVIDIA began publishing security bulletins on GitHub to enhance transparency and integration with automated vulnerability management tools. Previous advisories have covered similar privilege escalation and code execution flaws, with generally prompt patch response times.
