Weakness · High
CWE-1292: Incorrect Conversion of Security Identifiers
What it is
The product implements a conversion mechanism to map certain bus-transaction signals to security identifiers. However, if the conversion is incorrectly implemented, untrusted agents can gain unauthorized access to the asset.
- 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
In a System-On-Chip (SoC), various integrated circuits and hardware engines generate transactions such as to access (reads/writes) assets or perform certain actions (e.g., reset, fetch, compute, etc.). Among various types of message information, a typical transaction is comprised of source identity (to identify the originator of the transaction) and a destination identity (to route the transaction to the respective entity). Sometimes the transactions are qualified with a security identifier. This security identifier helps the destination agent decide on the set of allowed actions (e.g., access an asset for read and writes). A typical bus connects several leader and follower agents. Some follower agents implement bus protocols differently from leader agents. A protocol conversion happens at a bridge to seamlessly connect different protocols on the bus. One example is a system that implements a leader with the Advanced High-performance Bus (AHB) protocol and a follower with the Open-Core Protocol (OCP). A bridge AHB-to-OCP is needed to translate the transaction from one form to the other. A common weakness that can exist in this scenario is that this conversion between protocols is implemented incorrectly, whereupon an untrusted agent may gain unauthorized access to an asset.
What an attacker can do
- Modify Memory (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Read Memory (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- DoS: Resource Consumption (Other) (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Gain Privileges or Assume Identity (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
- Quality Degradation (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control)
How to prevent it
Architecture and Design
- Security identifier decoders must be reviewed for design inconsistency and common weaknesses.
Implementation
- Access and programming flows must be tested in pre-silicon and post-silicon testing.
H2 Security
Found it in your code?
We review where it appears, fix it with your team, and check it was not already used against you.
Talk to our teamT Academy
Stop writing it in the first place
Learn to build software and systems without weaknesses like this one, with practice on real hosts in your browser, every objective checked on the machine.
Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.