CVE-2023-21456 Path traversal in Samsung Mobile Devices

What is CVE-2023-21456?

CVE-2023-21456 is a critical path traversal vulnerability in Samsung Android, published on 16 Mar 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Path traversal vulnerability in Galaxy Themes Service prior to SMR Mar-2023 Release 1 allows attacker to access arbitrary file with system uid.

Weakness: CWE-22

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-21456?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Samsung Android.

How do I fix CVE-2023-21456?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-21456 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.

Is CVE-2023-21456 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-21456 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Samsung Android

• CVE-2025-21042 Samsung Mobile Devices Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2025-21043 Samsung Mobile Devices Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2021-25487 Samsung Mobile Devices Out-of-Bounds Read Exploited High 7.3
• CVE-2021-25394 Samsung Mobile Devices Race Condition Exploited Medium 6.4
• CVE-2021-25395 Samsung Mobile Devices Race Condition Exploited Medium 6.4

All Samsung Android vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-qmcj-8g67-9633.