CVE-2020-24658

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).

Published: 2020-12-24 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2020-24658 is rated Low Risk (39.2/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.31%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-24658

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.21% 0.31% +0.10%
2 2025-11-21 0.10% 0.21% +0.11%
3 2025-11-18 0.10%

Full EPSS history (11 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-24658

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 5.9 [email protected]
4.4 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
3.4 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-24658

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-24658

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
arm arm_compiler >= 5.01, < 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:update1:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:update2:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:update3:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:update4:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:update5:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:update6:*:*:*:*:*:*
arm arm_compiler 5.06 cpe:2.3:a:arm:arm_compiler:5.06:update7:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-24658

cvelogic Threat Intelligence