OpenharmonyOperating system · Openatom

CVE-2025-25278

HIGH · 7.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-08-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 5.0.3 or later.
See remediation →
72/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click

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 · unedited
in OpenHarmony v5.0.3 and prior versions allow a local attacker arbitrary code execution in tcb through race condition.

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 confidence

A race condition vulnerability in OpenHarmony v5.0.3 and prior versions allows a local attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution within the Trusted Computing Base (TCB), likely through time-of-check-to-time-of-use (TOCTOU) manipulation of shared state or resources.

MitigationUpgrade to a patched version of OpenHarmony beyond v5.0.3 once available; if immediate patching is not possible, minimize local privileged access and monitor for suspicious process activity targeting TCB components.

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 data
OpenharmonyOperating system
Affected:<= 5.0.3

CVSS 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
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify OpenHarmony version
    Run 'paramctl get const.product.version' or check /etc/version or /system/etc/param/ohos.prop for the OpenHarmony version string
    Affected if The installed version is 5.0.3 or any version prior to it (e.g., 5.0.2, 5.0.1, 4.x releases)
  2. Locate Trusted Computing Base components
    Enumerate directories containing TCB-critical binaries and libraries such as /vendor/bin, /system/bin, /sbin, or custom secure partition paths used by your OpenHarmony build
    Affected if TCB components exist in the environment (the vulnerability targets TCB, so any presence of TCB components makes the system potentially affected)
  3. Check for privileged local processes
    Review running processes with elevated privileges or capabilities using 'ps -ael' or 'capsh --print' to identify processes that interact with TCB resources
    Affected if Privileged processes that manipulate shared state or resources within the TCB are running on the system
  4. Monitor for TOCTOU indicators
    Use file integrity monitoring or audit logs to detect rapid repeated access attempts to the same TCB-related files or resources in quick succession
    Affected if Multiple access attempts to the same TCB resource occur within a time window suggestive of race condition exploitation
  5. Inspect for unauthorized code execution artifacts
    Examine /data/local/tmp, /tmp, and other writable locations for unexpected executable files or newly deployed native libraries associated with TCB components
    Affected if Unexpected executables or modified TCB binaries are found in writable directories

You are affected if your OpenHarmony version is 5.0.3 or earlier and your system contains TCB components that could be targeted by a local race condition exploit.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 5.0.3
Interim mitigation

Upgrade to a patched version of OpenHarmony beyond v5.0.3 once available; if immediate patching is not possible, minimize local privileged access and monitor for suspicious process activity targeting TCB components.

Fix this in Openharmony Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation8.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing24.0 h
  • Review / QA12.0 h
60.0 hours of engineering $10,240
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $16,384.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-25278 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-25278 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data