Tesla Telematics Control Unit (TCU) < v2025.14 Authentication Bypass

published 2025-10-06 13 mo ago modified 2026-10-09 31 d ago also EUVD-2025-32120

cvss: 8.6; version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.4%; EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits: 0; none known

Tesla Telematics Control Unit (TCU) firmware prior to v2025.14 contains an authentication bypass vulnerability. The TCU runs the Android Debug Bridge (adbd) as root and, despite a “lockdown” check that disables adb shell, still permits adb push/pull and adb forward. Because adbd is privileged and the device’s USB port is exposed externally, an attacker with physical access can write an arbitrary file to a writable location and then overwrite the kernel’s uevent_helper or /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug entries via ADB, causing the script to be executed with root privileges.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

Tesla Telematics Control Unit (TCU) 2025.14

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 13 mo ago (2025-10-07)

Exploit prediction

0.45% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

nccgroup.com https://www.nccgroup.com/research-blog/technical-advisory-tesla-telematics-control-unit-adb-auth-bypass/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	4.0	8.6	CVSS:4.0/AV:P/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H
CNA	4.0	8.6	CVSS:4.0/AV:P/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected products

Tesla Telematics Control Unit (TCU)

Classification

Weakness

CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management
CWE-288 Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel

References

nccgroup.com /research-blog/technical-advisory-tesla-telematics-control-unit-adb-auth-bypass/
technical-description, exploit
tesla.com /
product
vulncheck.com /advisories/tesla-tcu-auth-bypass
third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2025-34251
NVD CVE-2025-34251

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary