CAPEC Definitions

    CAPEC Definitions / CAPEC-681

    CAPEC-681: Exploitation of Improperly Controlled Hardware Security Identifiers

    An adversary takes advantage of missing or incorrectly configured security identifiers (e.g., tokens), which are used for access control within a System-on-Chip (SoC), to read/write data or execute a given action.

    Severity:Very High
    Possibility:Medium

    Extended Description

    A System-on-Chip (SoC) often implements a security identifier mechanism to differentiate what actions are allowed or disallowed when a transaction originates from an entity. However, these mechanisms may be exploitable due to any number of the following: The security identifiers are missing The security identifiers are incorrectly implemented or generated The security identifiers are generated with an obsolete encoding The security identifiers are generated and implemented correctly, but are improperly protected If the security identifiers leveraged by the SoC are missing or misconfigured, an adversary may be able to take advantage of this shortcoming to circumvent the intended access controls. This could result in the adversary gaining unintended access, performing a Denial of Service (DoS), escalating privileges, or spoofing actions from a trusted agent.

    Mitigations

    Review generation of security identifiers for design inconsistencies and common weaknesses.

    Review security identifier decoders for design inconsistencies and common weaknesses.

    Test security identifier definition, access, and programming flow in both pre-silicon and post-silicon environments.

    Relationships with other CAPECs

    CAPEC-1: Accessing Functionality Not Properly Constrained by ACLs

    CAPEC-180: Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels

    Prerequisites

    Awareness of the hardware being leveraged.

    Access to the hardware being leveraged.

    Related Weaknesses

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