C1 Premium FirmwareOperating system · Arm

CVE-2024-7881

MEDIUM · 5.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-01-28
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
An unprivileged context can trigger a data memory-dependent prefetch engine to fetch the contents of a privileged location and consume those contents as an address that is also dereferenced.

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 confidence

A CPU data memory-dependent prefetch engine vulnerability allows an unprivileged attacker to trigger prefetch instructions that read privileged memory contents and use those contents as pointers for further memory dereferences, potentially leaking sensitive data via speculative execution side channels.

MitigationApply CPU microcode/firmware updates from the hardware vendor and any relevant OS/kernel security patches; consider disabling affected prefetch features in firmware settings if available and performance-impact acceptable.

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
C1 Premium FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
C1 Pro FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
C1 Ultra FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Cortex X3 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Cortex X4 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Cortex X925 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Neoverse V2 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions
Neoverse V3 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 CPU architecture and model
    Run 'lscpu' or check /proc/cpuinfo to see the processor family and model name. Look for Arm Cortex X3, X4, X925, or Neoverse V2/V3 identifiers.
    Affected if The CPU is one of the listed affected models: Arm C1 Premium/Pro/Ultra, Cortex X3, X4, X925, or Neoverse V2/V3.
  2. Check system firmware vendor
    Run 'dmesg | grep -i firmware' or check /sys/class/dmi/id/* files to identify the system vendor and firmware provider.
    Affected if The firmware is provided by Arm and matches one of the affected product lines.
  3. Inspect firmware version
    Check the installed CPU microcode/firmware version via 'cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/version' or via 'dmesg | grep -i microcode'. Compare against any vendor-released updates.
    Affected if The installed firmware version is older than the latest vendor-provided update for the affected CPU model.
  4. Verify speculative execution mitigation status
    Check if the OS has enabled any speculative execution mitigations by reviewing /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/* or running 'lsmep' if available on Arm systems.
    Affected if Speculative execution mitigations are not applied or the kernel does not recognize the vulnerability.

A system is affected if it runs on any of the listed Arm CPU models (Cortex X3/X4/X925 or Neoverse V2/V3, or C1 variants) and the firmware/microcode has not been updated to address the prefetch engine vulnerability.

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 CPU microcode/firmware updates from the hardware vendor and any relevant OS/kernel security patches; consider disabling affected prefetch features in firmware settings if available and performance-impact acceptable.

Fix this in C1 Premium Firmware Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation8.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing12.0 h
  • Review / QA8.0 h
44.0 hours of engineering $7,720
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Scan for this in your stack

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dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-7881 — 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-2024-7881 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