Cortex A57 FirmwareOperating system · Arm

CVE-2024-10929

MEDIUM · 5.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-01-22
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
56/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
In certain circumstances, an issue in Arm Cortex-A57, Cortex-A72 (revisions before r1p0), Cortex-A73 and Cortex-A75 may allow an adversary to gain a weak form of control over the victim's branch history.

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 · moderate confidence

A hardware vulnerability in specific Arm Cortex-A57, Cortex-A72 (revisions before r1p0), Cortex-A73 and Cortex-A75 processors allows an attacker in certain circumstances to exert weak control over a victim's branch history, potentially enabling speculative execution side-channel attacks.

MitigationApply available processor microcode/firmware updates from Arm or device vendors. Where updates are unavailable, implement OS-level mitigations such as branch predictor hardening or consider replacing affected hardware with unaffected revisions.

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
Cortex A57 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Cortex A72 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Cortex A73 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Cortex A75 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions

CVSS 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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the Arm processor model
    Run 'lscpu' or 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' on Linux systems to determine the CPU model. Look for Cortex-A57, Cortex-A72, Cortex-A73, or Cortex-A75 in the output.
    Affected if The CPU is identified as an Arm Cortex-A57, Cortex-A72, Cortex-A73, or Cortex-A75 processor
  2. Check Cortex-A72 revision number
    For Cortex-A72 systems specifically, examine the revision field in /proc/cpuinfo or via 'lscpu' output. Revisions are typically shown as r0p0, r1p0, etc.
    Affected if The revision is before r1p0 (e.g., r0p0) - note that this only applies to Cortex-A72; the other models are affected regardless of revision
  3. Verify firmware/microcode update status
    Check system firmware version or microcode version if available. On Linux, this may be visible in 'dmesg' under CPU initialization messages, or via 'cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/version' if the interface exists.
    Affected if The system firmware/microcode has not been updated from the original baseline - vulnerable if no update has been applied to address this hardware flaw
  4. Confirm speculative execution mitigation status
    Check for presence of branch predictor hardening or similar mitigations. On Linux, examine kernel command line parameters (cat /proc/cmdline) or check for Spectre/Meltdown mitigation status via 'cat /sys/kernel/debug/spectre_v2/status' if available.
    Affected if No OS-level speculative execution mitigations are present and the processor is one of the affected Cortex models listed above

A system is affected if it contains an Arm Cortex-A57, Cortex-A73, or Cortex-A75 processor of any revision, or a Cortex-A72 processor with revision before r1p0, and has not received firmware updates or OS-level mitigations to address the branch history manipulation flaw.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply available processor microcode/firmware updates from Arm or device vendors. Where updates are unavailable, implement OS-level mitigations such as branch predictor hardening or consider replacing affected hardware with unaffected revisions.

Fix this in Cortex A57 Firmware Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation8.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing12.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
40.0 hours of engineering $7,000
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-10929 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-10929 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data