CVE-2022-21198
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedTime-of-check time-of-use race condition in the BIOS firmware for some Intel(R) Processors may allow a privileged user to potentially enable escalation of privilege via local access.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceA time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition exists in the BIOS firmware of certain Intel processors. The vulnerability allows a privileged local user to exploit the timing window between checking a condition and using that check result to escalate privileges further. This is a local-only attack requiring the attacker to already have privileged access to the system.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE dataall versionsall versionsall versionsall versionsall versionsall versionsall versionsall versionsCVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify processor modelRun 'lscpu' on Linux or 'wmic cpu get name' on Windows to retrieve the processor modelAffected if The processor model matches any of: Celeron 1000m, 1005m, 1007u, 1017u, 1019y, 1020e, 1020m, or 1037u
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Confirm processor is Celeron variantReview CPU model output to confirm it is an Intel Celeron processor in the 1000m/1005m/1007u/1017u/1019y/1020e/1020m/1037u familyAffected if The CPU is one of the eight affected Celeron models listed in the CVE
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Verify local privileged access existsCheck current user privileges using 'whoami /all' on Windows or 'id' command on LinuxAffected if The attacker already has some privileged access on the system (this is a local privilege escalation from an already-privileged position)
You are affected if your system uses any of the eight listed Intel Celeron processor models and you have local privileged access that could be further escalated via the TOCTOU race condition.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply the Intel BIOS/firmware update corresponding to your processor model once released. Implement strict physical access controls and ensure standard patch management includes firmware updates for enterprise systems.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,928.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-21198 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-21198 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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