CAPEC Definitions

    CAPEC Definitions / CAPEC-121

    CAPEC-121: Exploit Non-Production Interfaces

    An adversary exploits a sample, demonstration, test, or debug interface that is unintentionally enabled on a production system, with the goal of gleaning information or leveraging functionality that would otherwise be unavailable.

    Severity:High
    Possibility:Low

    Extended Description

    Non-production interfaces are insecure by default and should not be resident on production systems, since they may reveal sensitive information or functionality that should not be known to end-users. However, such interfaces may be unintentionally left enabled on a production system due to configuration errors, supply chain mismanagement, or other pre-deployment activities. Ultimately, failure to properly disable non-production interfaces, in a production environment, may expose a great deal of diagnostic information or functionality to an adversary, which can be utilized to further refine their attack. Moreover, many non-production interfaces do not have adequate security controls or may not have undergone rigorous testing since they were not intended for use in production environments. As such, they may contain many flaws and vulnerabilities that could allow an adversary to severely disrupt a target.

    Mitigations

    Ensure that production systems do not contain non-production interfaces and that these interfaces are only used in development environments.

    Relationships with other CAPECs

    CAPEC-113: Interface Manipulation

    Prerequisites

    The target must have configured non-production interfaces and failed to secure or remove them when brought into a production environment.

    Related Weaknesses

    CWE-489: Active Debug Code

    CWE-1209: Failure to Disable Reserved Bits

    CWE-1259: Improper Restriction of Security Token Assignment

    CWE-1267: Policy Uses Obsolete Encoding

    CWE-1270: Generation of Incorrect Security Tokens

    CWE-1294: Insecure Security Identifier Mechanism

    CWE-1295: Debug Messages Revealing Unnecessary Information

    CWE-1296: Incorrect Chaining or Granularity of Debug Components

    CWE-1302: Missing Source Identifier in Entity Transactions on a System-On-Chip (SOC)

    CWE-1313: Hardware Allows Activation of Test or Debug Logic at Runtime