# Further Hardening Android GPUs

DevFeed: [Further Hardening Android GPUs](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/further-hardening-android-gpus-19809.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<http://security.googleblog.com/2025/12/further-hardening-android-gpus.html>)

Author: Edward Fernandez (noreply@blogger.com)

Published: 2025-12-09T17:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Google Online Security](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/google-online-security.md>)

Topics: [GPU](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gpu.md>), [Security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/security.md>), [Android](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/android.md>), [Arm](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/arm.md>), [SELinux](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/selinux.md>), [Kernel](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/kernel.md>), [Vulnerabilities](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/vulnerabilities.md>)

Tags: [android](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/android.md>), [android-security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/android-security.md>), [arm](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/arm.md>), [gpu](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gpu.md>), [kernel](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/kernel.md>), [none](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/none.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [selinux](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/selinux.md>), [vulnerabilities](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vulnerabilities.md>)

## AI overview

Google's Android Red Team and Arm analyzed the Mali GPU driver and firmware stack to reduce the driver's attack surface. The post describes using SELinux to restrict GPU IOCTLs that are intended for development, debugging, instrumentation, or deprecated use in production.

## Source excerpt

Posted by Liz Prucka, Hamzeh Zawawy, Rishika Hooda, Android Security and Privacy Team Last year, Google's Android Red Team partnered with Arm to conduct an in-depth security analysis of the Mali GPU, a component used in billions of Android devices worldwide. This collaboration was a significant step in proactively identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in the GPU software and firmware stack. While finding and fixing individual bugs is crucial, and progress continues on eliminating them entirely, making them unreachable by restricting attack surface is another effective and often faster way to improve security. This post details our efforts in partnership with Arm to further harden the GPU by reducing the driver's attack surface. The Growing Threat: Why GPU Security Matters The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has become a critical and attractive target for attackers due to its complexity and privileged access to the system. The scale of this threat is significant: since 2021, the majority of Android kernel driver-based exploits have targeted the GPU. These exploits primarily target the interface between the User-Mode Driver (UMD) and the highly privileged Kernel-Mode Driver (KMD), where flaws can be exploited by malicious input to trigger memory corruption. Partnership with Arm Our goal is to raise the bar on GPU security, ensuring the Mali GPU driver and firmware remain highly resilient against potential threats. We partnered with Arm to conduct an analysis of the Mali driver, used on approximately 45% of Android devices. This collaboration was crucial for understanding the driver's attack surface and identifying areas that posed a security risk, but were not necessary for production use. The Right Tool for the Job: Hardening with SELinux One of the key findings of our investigation was the opportunity to restrict access to certain GPU IOCTLs. IOCTLs act as the GPU kernel driver's user input and output, as well as the attack surface. This approach builds on earlier k