Weakness · Medium

CWE-1276: Hardware Child Block Incorrectly Connected to Parent System

What it is

Signals between a hardware IP and the parent system design are incorrectly connected causing security risks.

MITRE CWE 4.19.1

Severity (our rating)
Medium
Likelihood of exploit
Not rated by MITRE
Introduced during
Implementation
Exploited in the wild
No CVE in CISA's catalog

In more detail

Individual hardware IP must communicate with the parent system in order for the product to function correctly and as intended. If implemented incorrectly, while not causing any apparent functional issues, may cause security issues. For example, if the IP should only be reset by a system-wide hard reset, but instead the reset input is connected to a software-triggered debug mode reset (which is also asserted during a hard reset), integrity of data inside the IP can be violated.

What an attacker can do

  • Varies by Context (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability)

How to prevent it

Testing

  • System-level verification may be used to ensure that components are correctly connected and that design security requirements are not violated due to interactions between various IP blocks.

CWE-1276 on MITRE's CWE site

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Source: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.