CWE - CWE-1278: Missing Protection Against Hardware Reverse Engineering Using Integrated Circuit (IC) Imaging Techniques (4.16)

Weakness ID: 1278

Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
Abstraction: Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.

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Description

Information stored in hardware may be recovered by an attacker with the capability to capture and analyze images of the integrated circuit using techniques such as scanning electron microscopy.

Extended Description

The physical structure of a device, viewed at high enough magnification, can reveal the information stored inside. Typical steps in IC reverse engineering involve removing the chip packaging (decapsulation) then using various imaging techniques ranging from high resolution x-ray microscopy to invasive techniques involving removing IC layers and imaging each layer using a scanning electron microscope.

The goal of such activities is to recover secret keys, unique device identifiers, and proprietary code and circuit designs embedded in hardware that the attacker has been unsuccessful at accessing through other means. These secrets may be stored in non-volatile memory or in the circuit netlist. Memory technologies such as masked ROM allow easier to extraction of secrets than One-time Programmable (OTP) memory.

Common Consequences

This table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.

Scope	Impact	Likelihood
Confidentiality	Technical Impact: Varies by Context A common goal of malicious actors who reverse engineer ICs is to produce and sell counterfeit versions of the IC.

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Architecture and Design

The cost of secret extraction via IC reverse engineering should outweigh the potential value of the secrets being extracted. Threat model and value of secrets should be used to choose the technology used to safeguard those secrets. Examples include IC camouflaging and obfuscation, tamper-proof packaging, active shielding, and physical tampering detection information erasure.

Relationships

This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.

Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (CWE-1000)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
ChildOf	Pillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things.	693	Protection Mechanism Failure

Relevant to the view "Hardware Design" (CWE-1194)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1388	Physical Access Issues and Concerns

Modes Of Introduction

The different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.

Phase	Note
Architecture and Design

Applicable Platforms

This listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.

Languages

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Operating Systems

Class: Not OS-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Architectures

Class: Not Architecture-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Technologies

Class: Not Technology-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

Consider an SoC design that embeds a secret key in read-only memory (ROM). The key is baked into the design logic and may not be modified after fabrication causing the key to be identical for all devices. An attacker in possession of the IC can decapsulate and delayer the device. After imaging the layers, computer vision algorithms or manual inspection of the circuit features locate the ROM and reveal the value of the key bits as encoded in the visible circuit structure of the ROM.

Memberships

This MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1372	ICS Supply Chain: OT Counterfeit and Malicious Corruption
MemberOf	Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1377	ICS Engineering (Construction/Deployment): Inherent Predictability in Design
MemberOf	Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1413	Comprehensive Categorization: Protection Mechanism Failure

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage: ALLOWED

(this CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)

Reason: Acceptable-Use

Rationale:

This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.

Comments:

Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

Notes

Maintenance

This entry is still under development and will continue to see updates and content improvements. It is more attack-oriented, so it might be more suited for CAPEC.

Related Attack Patterns

CAPEC-ID	Attack Pattern Name
CAPEC-188	Reverse Engineering
CAPEC-37	Retrieve Embedded Sensitive Data
CAPEC-545	Pull Data from System Resources

References

[REF-1092] Shahed E. Quadir, Junlin Chen, Domenic Forte, Navid Asadizanjani, Sina Shahbazmohamadi, Lei Wang, John Chandy and Mark Tehranipoor. "A Survey on Chip to System Reverse Engineering". <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2755563>. URL validated: 2023-04-07.

[REF-1129] Christopher Tarnovsky. "Security Failures In Secure Devices". 2008-02-21. <https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-08/Tarnovsky/Presentation/bh-dc-08-tarnovsky.pdf>.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2020-05-20 (CWE 4.1, 2020-02-24)	Nicole Fern	Cycuity (originally submitted as Tortuga Logic)
2020-05-20 (CWE 4.1, 2020-02-24)
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2020-08-20	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020-08-20	updated Demonstrative_Examples, Description, Modes_of_Introduction, Potential_Mitigations, References, Related_Attack_Patterns
2021-03-15	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021-03-15	updated Maintenance_Notes
2022-04-28	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2022-04-28	updated Relationships
2022-06-28	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2022-06-28	updated Relationships
2022-10-13	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2022-10-13	updated Relationships
2023-01-31	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023-01-31	updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2023-04-27	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023-04-27	updated References, Relationships
2023-06-29	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023-06-29	updated Mapping_Notes


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Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-1278: Missing Protection Against Hardware Reverse Engineering Using Integrated Circuit (IC) Imaging Techniques

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