CVE-2016-9278 Samsung CVE debrief

Who should care

Organizations and teams managing Samsung Android devices built on Exynos 5433, 54xx, or 7420 chipsets should care most, especially mobile fleet administrators, OEM support teams, and security owners responsible for patch compliance on Samsung-based fleets.

Technical summary

The NVD record describes a flaw in the Samsung Exynos fimg2d driver where crafted ioctl input can cause a kernel panic, resulting in availability impact only. The attack is local, requires low privileges, and does not indicate confidentiality or integrity impact in the NVD CVSS vector. Samsung’s referenced November 2016 maintenance release advisory is the primary vendor reference in the supplied corpus.

Defensive priority

Medium. The issue is not remotely exploitable according to the supplied NVD vector, but it can still disrupt affected devices through a kernel panic and should be remediated on exposed Samsung Exynos fleets.

Recommended defensive actions

• Inventory Samsung Android devices using Exynos 5433, 54xx, or 7420 chipsets.
• Confirm whether the Samsung security maintenance release referenced by the vendor advisory has been applied to affected devices.
• Prioritize OEM firmware and security patch updates for any fleet devices still on vulnerable builds.
• Treat unexpected kernel panics or repeated driver crashes as a patch-management signal and verify affected devices against the advisory and NVD record.
• If patch status is uncertain, coordinate with the device vendor or OEM support channel for a remediation path.

Evidence notes

The supplied NVD metadata lists the vulnerable CPE as samsung:exynos_fimg2d_driver and classifies the weakness as CWE-20. The CVSS 3.0 vector is AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, which supports a local availability-only impact. Supplied references include Samsung’s SMR-NOV-2016 advisory and Openwall mailing list posts; the NVD record was published on 2017-01-18 and later modified in metadata on 2026-05-13, which should not be read as the vulnerability’s discovery date.

Official resources