Weakness · High
CWE-1259: Improper Restriction of Security Token Assignment
What it is
The System-On-A-Chip (SoC) implements a Security Token mechanism to differentiate what actions are allowed or disallowed when a transaction originates from an entity. However, the Security Tokens are improperly protected.
- Severity (our rating)
- High
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Introduced during
- Architecture and Design, Implementation
- Exploited in the wild
- No CVE in CISA's catalog
In more detail
Systems-On-A-Chip (Integrated circuits and hardware engines) implement Security Tokens to differentiate and identify which actions originated from which agent. These actions may be one of the directives: 'read', 'write', 'program', 'reset', 'fetch', 'compute', etc. Security Tokens are assigned to every agent in the System that is capable of generating an action or receiving an action from another agent. Multiple Security Tokens may be assigned to an agent and may be unique based on the agent's trust level or allowed privileges. Since the Security Tokens are integral for the maintenance of security in an SoC, they need to be protected properly. A common weakness afflicting Security Tokens is improperly restricting the assignment to trusted components.
What an attacker can do
- Modify Files or Directories (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Bypass Protection Mechanism (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Gain Privileges or Assume Identity (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Modify Memory (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
How to prevent it
Architecture and Design
- Security Token assignment review checks for design inconsistency and common weaknesses. Security-Token definition and programming flow is tested in both pre-silicon and post-silicon testing.
H2 Security
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Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.