TL;DR
Google Project Zero discovered that a Dolby audio processing vulnerability (CVE-2025-54957) enabled attackers to gain root access on Android devices without user interaction. Researchers successfully adapted their Pixel 9 exploit chain to work on Pixel 10, demonstrating the vulnerability persisted across Android versions until patched in January 2026.
✦ Why It Matters
Engineers must patch vulnerabilities across all affected device generations simultaneously to prevent attackers from exploiting older attack vectors on newer hardware.
Key Takeaways
How It Works
The vulnerability in the VPU driver allows users to map a larger memory area than intended, enabling access to the kernel's memory space. By exploiting this flaw, attackers can overwrite kernel functions, leading to full control over the device.
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