Vulnerability in Intel(r) Reference Platforms May Allow An Escalation Of Privilege. System Software Adversary With A Privileged User Combined High Complexity Attack Enable This Result Potentially Occur Via Local Access When Requirements Are Present Without Special Internal Knowledge And Requires No Interaction. The Potential Vulnerability Impact Confidentiality (High), Integrity (High) Availability Vulnerable System, Resulting In Subsequent (None), (None) Impacts.

CVE-2025-20028

Time-of-check time-of-use race condition in the WheaERST SMM module for some Intel(R) reference platforms may allow an escalation of privilege. System software adversary with a privileged user combined with a high complexity attack may enable escalation of privilege. This result may potentially occur via local access when attack requirements are present without special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction. The potential vulnerability may impact the confidentiality (high), integrity (high) and availability (high) of the vulnerable system, resulting in subsequent system confidentiality (none), integrity (none) and availability (none) impacts.

Vulnerability class: TOCTOU (Time-of-Check to Time-of-Use)

Published · last modified .

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.001 (0.1th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 0th percentile — 0.1% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2025-20028: held from 0.001 to 0.001.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.001 · change: 0.000

Affected products

  • Intel(r) Reference Platforms May Allow An Escalation Of Privilege. System Software Adversary With A Privileged User Combined High Complexity Attack Enable This Result Potentially Occur Via Local Access When Requirements Are Present Without Special Internal Knowledge And Requires No Interaction. The Potential Vulnerability Impact Confidentiality (High), Integrity (High) Availability Vulnerable System, Resulting In Subsequent (None), (None) Impacts. — versions See references

Weakness classification (CWE)

References