Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-52496

Arm Mbed Tls ≤ 3.6.4

Public PoC
Published
04 July 2025
Modified
17 June 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0019 9th percentile
Risk Priority 53 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-52496 is a high-severity Compiler Optimization Removal or Modification of Security-critical Code (CWE-733) vulnerability in Arm Mbed Tls. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Credential Dumping (T1003); ranked at the 9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

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 forgery.

CWE(s)
CWE-733

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1003 OS Credential Dumping Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump credentials to obtain account login and credential material, normally in the form of a hash or a clear text password.
attack.mitre.org →
T1552 Unsecured Credentials Credential Access
Adversaries may search compromised systems to find and obtain insecurely stored credentials.
attack.mitre.org →
T1497 Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion Stealth
Adversaries may employ various means to detect and avoid virtualization and analysis environments.
attack.mitre.org →
T1622 Debugger Evasion Stealth
Adversaries may employ various means to detect and avoid debuggers.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-59438Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-52497Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-47917Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-54764Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2023-52353Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-48965Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2026-34872Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-66442Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-27810Same product: Arm Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-20241Shared CWE-733

Affected Assets

arm
mbed tls
≤ 3.6.4

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation partial match

Developer testing and evaluation can reveal cases where security code has been optimized away.

SA-15 Development Process, Standards, and Tools partial match

Documented developer processes and standards can mandate coding patterns and compiler flags that preserve security-critical operations.

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

Security engineering principles include requirements for correct implementation of protection mechanisms that survive compilation.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require techniques that preserve security-critical code against compiler optimizations.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing in development can detect optimization-induced removal of security mechanisms.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure SDLC requires compiler and build-process controls that can prevent optimization removal of security code.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly address compiler flags and volatile/optimization barriers for security-critical code.

References