CVE-2026-20415: 
NixOS vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2026-20415 is a memory corruption vulnerability in the MediaTek imgsys component caused by improper locking, classified under CWE-415 (Double Free) and CWE-667 (Improper Locking). It affects Android 15.0 devices running on MediaTek chipsets MT6897 and MT6989. The vulnerability was published on February 2, 2026, with a patch made available in MediaTek's February 2026 Product Security Bulletin. It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.5 (Medium) (MediaTek Bulletin, Red Hat CVE).

The root cause is improper locking within the imgsys kernel component on affected MediaTek chipsets, which can result in a double-free memory corruption condition (CWE-415, CWE-667). An attacker who has already obtained System-level privileges on the device can trigger this flaw locally without any user interaction, exploiting the race condition or locking failure to corrupt memory. The vulnerability is tracked internally by MediaTek as Patch ID ALPS10363254 and Issue ID MSV-5617. No public proof-of-concept or detailed technical write-up has been identified at this time (MediaTek Bulletin).

Successful exploitation leads to a local denial of service, causing the imgsys component to crash or become unstable, which can disrupt system functionality on affected Android 15.0 devices. The vulnerability has no confidentiality or integrity impact — only availability is affected. Because exploitation requires pre-existing System-level privileges, the practical blast radius is limited, but a compromised system process could leverage this to further destabilize the device (MediaTek Bulletin, Red Hat CVE).

There is no known public proof-of-concept exploit and no evidence of in-the-wild exploitation as of the time of this report. The EPSS score is approximately 0.018%, reflecting a very low probability of exploitation in the near term. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. Exploitation requires the attacker to already hold System-level privileges on the target device, significantly limiting the attack surface (MediaTek Bulletin).

MediaTek has released a patch addressing this vulnerability, identified as Patch ID ALPS10363254, available through the February 2026 MediaTek Product Security Bulletin. Affected device manufacturers (OEMs) should integrate and distribute this patch to end users for Android 15.0 devices using MT6897 or MT6989 chipsets. As a compensating control, organizations should enforce strict access controls to limit System-level privilege escalation opportunities and monitor system logs for unexpected crashes or instability in imgsys components (MediaTek Bulletin).