Systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access via a side-channel analysis.

The AES instructions on the ARMv8 platform do not have an algorithm that is "intrinsically resistant" to side-channel attacks. NOTE: the vendor reportedly offers the position "while power side channel attacks ... are possible, they are not directly caused by or related to the Arm architecture."

Certain Arm Cortex and Neoverse processors through 2022-03-08 do not properly restrict cache speculation, aka Spectre-BHB. An attacker can leverage the shared branch history in the Branch History Buffer (BHB) to influence mispredicted branches. Then, cache allocation can allow the attacker to obtain sensitive information.

Spectre BHB is a variant of Spectre-v2 in which malicious code uses the shared branch history (stored in the CPU BHB) to influence mispredicted branches in the victim's hardware context. Speculation caused by these mispredicted branches can then potentially be used to cause cache allocation, which can then be used to infer information that should be protected.

Arm Armv8-A core implementations utilizing speculative execution past unconditional changes in control flow may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access via a side-channel analysis, aka "straight-line speculation."