# CVE-2026-20908: Race condition in Intel(R) NPU Driver for Windows

> A race condition in the Intel NPU Driver for Windows allows an unprivileged local attacker to cause a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.8 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 11 Aug 2026
- **Updated:** 12 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-4942-r77j-8wv7

## What is CVE-2026-20908?

CVE-2026-20908 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Intel(R) NPU Driver for Windows, published on 11 Aug 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Time-of-check time-of-use race condition for the Intel(R) NPU Driver for Windows for all versions within Ring 1: Device Drivers may allow a denial of service. Unprivileged software adversary with an authenticated user combined with a high complexity attack may enable denial of service. This result may potentially occur via local access when attack requirements are present without special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction. The potential vulnerability may impact the confidentiality (none), integrity (low) and availability (high) of the vulnerable system, resulting in subsequent system confidentiality (none), integrity (none) and availability (none) impacts.

Weakness: CWE-367 (Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-20908?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Intel Neural Processing Unit Driver.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-20908?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-20908 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-20908 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-20908 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Intel(R) NPU Driver for Windows

- [CVE-2026-20731](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20731/): Denial of service in Intel(R) NPU Driver (medium 6.9)
- [CVE-2026-20769](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20769/): Denial of service in Intel(R) NPU Driver (medium 6.9)
- [CVE-2026-20783](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20783/): Denial of service in Intel(R) NPU Driver (medium 6.9)
- [CVE-2026-20786](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20786/): Denial of service in Intel(R) NPU Driver (medium 6.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-20908 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-20908 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Intel(R) NPU Driver for Windows, published on 11 Aug 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-20908 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Intel(R) NPU Driver for Windows. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20908/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20908/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-20908
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-20908
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-20908

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20908/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.