CWE - CWE-1281: Sequence of Processor Instructions Leads to Unexpected Behavior (4.10)

Weakness ID: 1281

Abstraction: Base
Structure: Simple

View customized information:

Description

Specific combinations of processor instructions lead to undesirable behavior such as locking the processor until a hard reset performed.

Extended Description

If the instruction set architecture (ISA) and processor logic are not designed carefully and tested thoroughly, certain combinations of instructions may lead to locking the processor or other unexpected and undesirable behavior. Upon encountering unimplemented instruction opcodes or illegal instruction operands, the processor should throw an exception and carry on without negatively impacting security. However, specific combinations of legal and illegal instructions may cause unexpected behavior with security implications such as allowing unprivileged programs to completely lock the CPU.

Some examples are the Pentium f00f bug, MC6800 HCF, the Cyrix comma bug, and more generally other "Halt and Catch Fire" instructions.

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.	691	Insufficient Control Flow Management

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.	1201	Core and Compute Issues

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	Unexpected behavior from certain instruction combinations can arise from bugs in the ISA
Implementation	Unexpected behavior from certain instruction combinations can arise because of implementation details such as speculative execution, caching etc.

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)

Processor Hardware (Undetermined Prevalence)

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
Integrity Availability	Technical Impact: Varies by Context

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

The Pentium F00F bug is a real-world example of how a sequence of instructions can lock a processor. The "cmpxchg8b" instruction compares contents of registers with a memory location. The operand is expected to be a memory location, but in the bad code snippet it is the eax register. Because the specified operand is illegal, an exception is generated, which is the correct behavior and not a security issue in itself. However, when prefixed with the "lock" instruction, the processor deadlocks because locked memory transactions require a read and write pair of transactions to occur before the lock on the memory bus is released. The exception causes a read to occur but there is no corresponding write, as there would have been if a legal operand had been supplied to the cmpxchg8b instruction.

(bad code)

Example Language: x86 Assembly

lock cmpxchg8b eax

Observed Examples

Reference	Description
CVE-1999-1476	A bug in some Intel Pentium processors allow DoS (hang) via an invalid "CMPXCHG8B" instruction, causing a deadlock

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Testing

Implement a rigorous testing strategy that incorporates randomization to explore instruction sequences that are unlikely to appear in normal workloads in order to identify halt and catch fire instruction sequences.

Phase: Patching and Maintenance

Patch operating system to avoid running Halt and Catch Fire type sequences or to mitigate the damage caused by unexpected behavior. See [REF-1108].

Related Attack Patterns

CAPEC-ID	Attack Pattern Name
CAPEC-212	Functionality Misuse

References

[REF-1094] Christopher Domas. "Breaking the x86 ISA". <https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/sandsifter/blob/master/references/domas_breaking_the_x86_isa_wp.pdf>.

[REF-1108] Intel Corporation. "Deep Dive: Retpoline: A Branch Target Injection Mitigation". <https://software.intel.com/security-software-guidance/insights/deep-dive-retpoline-branch-target-injection-mitigation>.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2020-05-15	Nicole Fern	Tortuga Logic
2020-05-15
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2020-08-20	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020-08-20	updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2021-03-15	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021-03-15	updated Potential_Mitigations
2021-07-20	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021-07-20	updated Name, Observed_Examples
2022-10-13	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2022-10-13	updated Applicable_Platforms, Demonstrative_Examples
Previous Entry Names
Change Date	Previous Entry Name
2021-07-20	Sequence of Processor Instructions Leads to Unexpected Behavior (Halt and Catch Fire)


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Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-1281: Sequence of Processor Instructions Leads to Unexpected Behavior