CWE-733 5 CVEs MITRE definition ↗

CWE-733: Compiler Optimization Removal or Modification of Security-critical Code

Overview

CWE-733 (Compiler Optimization Removal or Modification of Security-critical Code) documents a weakness type used across vulnerability databases and security assessments. Use the sections below for definition, context, and mapped CVEs.

Security impact
Security impact: Depends on product and context; use CVE records, severity scores, and MITRE guidance to prioritize.

Description

The developer builds a security-critical protection mechanism into the software, but the compiler optimizes the program such that the mechanism is removed or modified.

Applicable platforms

Kind Name Class Prevalence OS / CPE
language C Often
language C++ Often
language Compiled Undetermined

Related CVEs in this database

These CVEs are mapped to this weakness in this database and kept for traceability and search.

CVE Published Summary
CVE-2025-13024 2025-11-11 JIT miscompilation in the JavaScript Engine: JIT component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 145 and Thunderbird 145.
CVE-2025-20241 2025-08-27 A vulnerability in the Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) feature of Cisco NX-OS Software for Cisco Nexus 3000 Series Switches and Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches in standalone NX-OS …
CVE-2024-58262 2025-07-27 The curve25519-dalek crate before 4.1.3 for Rust has a constant-time operation on elliptic curve scalars that is removed by LLVM.
CVE-2025-52496 2025-07-04 Mbed TLS before 3.6.4 has a race condition in AESNI detection if certain compiler optimizations occur. An attacker may be able to extract an AES key from a multithreaded program, or perform a GCM forg…
CVE-2020-15294 2020-12-17 Compiler Optimization Removal or Modification of Security-critical Code vulnerability in IntPeParseUnwindData() results in multiple dereferences to the same pointer. If the pointer is located in memor…

Content submission

Name
CWE Content Team
Organization
MITRE
Date
2008-10-01
Version
1.0.1
Comment
new weakness-focused entry for Research view closes the gap between 14 and 435.

Content modifications

Date Name Version Importance Comment
2008-11-24 CWE Content Team 1.1 updated Detection_Factors
2009-03-10 CWE Content Team 1.3 updated Applicable_Platforms, Observed_Examples, Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships
2010-02-16 CWE Content Team 1.8 updated References
2011-06-01 CWE Content Team 1.13 updated Common_Consequences
2012-05-11 CWE Content Team 2.2 updated Relationships
2014-07-30 CWE Content Team 2.8 updated Relationships
2017-01-19 CWE Content Team 2.10 updated Relationships
2017-11-08 CWE Content Team 3.0 updated References, Relationships
2018-03-27 CWE Content Team 3.1 updated References, Relationships
2020-02-24 CWE Content Team 4.0 updated Relationships
2020-06-25 CWE Content Team 4.1 updated Observed_Examples
2023-04-27 CWE Content Team 4.11 updated Relationships
2023-06-29 CWE Content Team 4.12 updated Mapping_Notes
2024-02-29 CWE Content Team 4.14 updated Demonstrative_Examples
2025-12-11 CWE Content Team 4.19 updated Common_Consequences, Demonstrative_Examples, Detection_Factors, Time_of_Introduction, Weakness_Ordinalities
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