Arm Compiler 5 through 5.06u6 has an error in a stack protection feature designed to help spot stack-based buffer overflows in local arrays. When this feature is enabled, a protected function writes a guard value to the stack prior to (above) any vulnerable arrays in the stack. The guard value is checked for corruption on function return; corruption leads to an error-handler call. In certain circumstances, the reference value that is compared against the guard value is itself also written to the stack (after any vulnerable arrays). The reference value is written to the stack when the function runs out of registers to use for other temporary data. If both the reference value and the guard value are written to the stack, then the stack protection will fail to spot corruption when both values are overwritten with the same value. For both the reference value and the guard value to be corrupted, there would need to be both a buffer overflow and a buffer underflow in the vulnerable arrays (or some other vulnerability that causes two separated stack entries to be corrupted).
This vulnerability carries a HIGH severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.8, requiring local system access to exploit with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from arm organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.
2020-12-24T18:15:12.517
2024-11-21T05:15:24.993
Modified
CVSSv3.1: 7.8 (HIGH)
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
3.4
6.4
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version/Range | Vulnerable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | < 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
| Application | arm | arm_compiler | 5.06 | Yes |
SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For arm's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.