CVE-2019-20537
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedAn issue was discovered on Samsung mobile devices with P(9.0) (TEEGRIS and Qualcomm chipsets). There is arbitrary memory overwrite in the SEM Trustlet, leading to arbitrary code execution. The Samsung IDs are SVE-2019-14651, SVE-2019-14666 (November 2019).
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceArbitrary memory overwrite vulnerability in the SEM (Secure Element Manager) Trustlet on Samsung mobile devices running Android P (9.0) with TEEGRIS TEE and Qualcomm chipsets allows attackers to achieve arbitrary code execution within the Trusted Execution Environment, bypassing security boundaries and potentially accessing sensitive cryptographic keys and secure hardware functions.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 9.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm Android version is 9.0Check the Android build version in Settings > About Phone > Android version, or run 'getprop ro.build.version.release' via ADBAffected if Android version equals 9.0 exactly
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Verify device is a Samsung modelCheck the device model in Settings > About Phone > Model number, or run 'getprop ro.product.model' via ADBAffected if Device is manufactured by Samsung
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Confirm TEEGRIS TEE is in useCheck TEE information via 'getprop ro.trustonic.tee' or inspect /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/tee* for TEEGRIS references; Samsung devices with TEEGRIS will show TEEGRIS as the TEE providerAffected if The device uses TEEGRIS as its Trusted Execution Environment
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Verify Qualcomm chipset is presentCheck chipset information via 'getprop ro.hardware' or inspect /proc/cpuinfo for Qualcomm Snapdragon identifiersAffected if Device uses a Qualcomm chipset
A user is affected only if their Samsung device simultaneously runs Android 9.0, uses TEEGRIS TEE, and has a Qualcomm chipset; meeting only some of these conditions means the specific vulnerable configuration does not apply.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply the November 2019 Samsung security update (SVE-2019-14651, SVE-2019-14666) which addresses this vulnerability; if unavailable for specific devices, consider isolating them from untrusted input and monitoring for indicators of compromise, as no user-side mitigation can address the firmware-level flaw.
- Consultation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-20537 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-20537 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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