{"id":87066,"date":"2026-06-07T18:24:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T18:24:59","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T06:00:00","slug":"cve-2025-56301-privilege-state-corruption-and-exception-handling-flaw-in-chipsalliance-rocket-chip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-56301-privilege-state-corruption-and-exception-handling-flaw-in-chipsalliance-rocket-chip\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-56301: Privilege State Corruption and Exception Handling Flaw in Chipsalliance Rocket-Chip<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-56301 is a critical issue discovered in the Chipsalliance Rocket-Chip. The flaw allows bad actors to corrupt exception handling and privilege state transitions. This vulnerability poses a significant threat to any system running affected versions of the Rocket-Chip, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-56301<br \/>\nSeverity: High (CVSS: 7.5)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Local<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: Low<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: System compromise or data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-4220166796\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 720px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 22px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center; letter-spacing: -0.02em;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 10px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 42px; height: 42px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    Share secrets securely\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 14px; color: #d1d5db;\">\r\n    Ameeba is private infrastructure for communication and sensitive work built on encrypted identity instead of exposed corporate identity systems.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 18px; color: #a1a1aa;\">\r\n    Passwords, credentials, confidential files, screenshots, internal discussions, sensitive AI context, and private coordination should not become exposed across ordinary communication platforms.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #e4e4e7;\">\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Private Spaces for organizations and teams<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, files, and notes<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Sensitive AI work and protected collaboration<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Built for information that cannot leak<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #ffffff;\">\r\n    Our mission is to secure human work alongside AI.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Download Ameeba\r\n    <\/a>\r\n\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Learn More\r\n    <\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>Chipsalliance Rocket-Chip | Versions prior to commit f517abbf41abb65cea37421d3559f9739efd00a9 (2025-01-29)<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The vulnerability arises from a flawed interaction between exception handling and exception return (MRET) mechanisms in the Control and Status Register (CSR) logic. When an MRET instruction is executed in machine mode without being in an exception state, an Instruction Access Fault may be triggered. This results in both the exception handling logic and the exception return logic activating simultaneously, leading to conflicting updates to the control and status registers. Consequently, this flaw can be exploited by an attacker to corrupt exception handling and privilege state transitions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-3106555808\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>The following pseudocode demonstrates how the vulnerability could be exploited:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">\/\/ Enter machine mode without being in an exception state\nenterMachineMode();\n\/\/ Execute MRET instruction\nexecuteMRET();\n\/\/ The above triggers an Instruction Access Fault, activating both\n\/\/ the exception handling logic and the exception return logic simultaneously<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>The above steps result in conflicting updates to the control and status registers, thereby corrupting exception handling and privilege state transitions. An attacker could potentially utilize this flaw to compromise the system or leak data.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mitigation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Users are advised to apply the vendor patch immediately once available. In the meantime, the use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as temporary mitigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-56301 is a critical issue discovered in the Chipsalliance Rocket-Chip. The flaw allows bad actors to corrupt exception handling and privilege state transitions. This vulnerability poses a significant threat to any system running affected versions of the Rocket-Chip, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage. Vulnerability Summary CVE ID: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"vendor":[],"product":[],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-87066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87066"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=87066"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=87066"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=87066"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=87066"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=87066"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=87066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}