CWE - CWE-1301: Insufficient or Incomplete Data Removal within Hardware Component (4.13)

Weakness ID: 1301

Abstraction: Base
Structure: Simple

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Description

The product's data removal process does not completely delete all data and potentially sensitive information within hardware components.

Extended Description

Physical properties of hardware devices, such as remanence of magnetic media, residual charge of ROMs/RAMs, or screen burn-in may still retain sensitive data after a data removal process has taken place and power is removed.

Recovering data after erasure or overwriting is possible due to a phenomenon called data remanence. For example, if the same value is written repeatedly to a memory location, the corresponding memory cells can become physically altered to a degree such that even after the original data is erased that data can still be recovered through physical characterization of the memory cells.

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	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.	226	Sensitive Information in Resource Not Removed Before Reuse
ParentOf	Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	1330	Remanent Data Readable after Memory Erase

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.	1208	Cross-Cutting Problems
ParentOf	Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	1330	Remanent Data Readable after Memory Erase

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
Implementation

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)

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: Read Memory; Read Application Data

Observed Examples

Reference

Description

CVE-2019-8575

Firmware Data Deletion Vulnerability in which a base station factory reset might not delete all user information. The impact of this enables a new owner of a used device that has been "factory-default reset" with a vulnerable firmware version can still retrieve, at least, the previous owner's wireless network name, and the previous owner's wireless security (such as WPA2) key. This issue was addressed with improved, data deletion.

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Architecture and Design

Apply blinding or masking techniques to implementations of cryptographic algorithms.

Phase: Implementation

Alter the method of erasure, add protection of media, or destroy the media to protect the data.

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.	1416	Comprehensive Categorization: Resource Lifecycle Management

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage: Allowed

(this CWE ID could 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.

Related Attack Patterns

CAPEC-ID	Attack Pattern Name
CAPEC-37	Retrieve Embedded Sensitive Data

References

[REF-1117] Paul Kocher, Joshua Jaffe and Benjamin Jun. "Introduction to differential power analysis and related attacks". 1998. <https://www.rambus.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/DPATechInfo.pdf>.

[REF-1118] Dakshi Agrawal, Bruce Archambeault, Josyula R. Rao and Pankaj Rohatgi. "The EM Side-Channel(s)". 2007-08-24. <https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/3-540-36400-5_4.pdf>. URL validated: 2023-04-07.

[REF-1119] Daniel Genkin, Adi Shamir and Eran Tromer. "RSA key extraction via low-bandwidth acoustic cryptanalysis". 2014-06-13. <https://www.iacr.org/archive/crypto2014/86160149/86160149.pdf>.

[REF-1120] Colin O'Flynn. "Power Analysis for Cheapskates". 2013-01-24. <https://media.blackhat.com/eu-13/briefings/OFlynn/bh-eu-13-for-cheapstakes-oflynn-wp.pdf>.

[REF-1055] Peter Gutmann. "Data Remanence in Semiconductor Devices". 10th USENIX Security Symposium. 2001-08. <https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec01/full_papers/gutmann/gutmann.pdf>.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2020-05-29 (CWE 4.2, 2020-08-20)	Nicole Fern	Tortuga Logic
2020-05-29 (CWE 4.2, 2020-08-20)
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2020-12-10	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020-12-10	updated Relationships
2021-07-20	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021-07-20	updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2021-10-28	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021-10-28	updated Description
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
2023-10-26	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023-10-26	updated Observed_Examples


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Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-1301: Insufficient or Incomplete Data Removal within Hardware Component

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