CWE-1351: Improper Handling of Hardware Behavior in Exceptionally Cold Environments
Weakness ID: 1351
Vulnerability Mapping:ALLOWEDThis CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities Abstraction:
BaseBase - 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
A hardware device, or the firmware running on it, is
missing or has incorrect protection features to maintain
goals of security primitives when the device is cooled below
standard operating temperatures.
Extended Description
The hardware designer may improperly anticipate
hardware behavior when exposed to exceptionally cold
conditions. As a result they may introduce a weakness by not
accounting for the modified behavior of critical components
when in extreme environments.
An example of a change in behavior is that power loss
won't clear/reset any volatile state when cooled below
standard operating temperatures. This may result in
a weakness when the starting state of the volatile memory is
being relied upon for a security decision. For example, a
Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) may be supplied as a
security primitive to improve confidentiality,
authenticity, and integrity guarantees. However, when the
PUF is paired with DRAM, SRAM, or another temperature
sensitive entropy source, the system designer may introduce
weakness by failing to account for the chosen entropy
source's behavior at exceptionally low temperatures. In the
case of DRAM and SRAM, when power is cycled at low
temperatures, the device will not contain the bitwise
biasing caused by inconsistencies in manufacturing and will
instead contain the data from previous boot. Should the PUF
primitive be used in a cryptographic construction which
does not account for full adversary control of PUF seed
data, weakness would arise.
This weakness does not cover "Cold Boot Attacks"
wherein RAM or other external storage is super cooled and
read externally by an attacker.
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.
Impact
Details
Varies by Context; Unexpected State
Scope: Integrity, AuthenticationLikelihood: Low
Consequences of this weakness are highly contextual.
Potential Mitigations
Phase(s)
Mitigation
Architecture and Design
The system should account for security primitive behavior when cooled outside standard temperatures.
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" (View-1000)
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.
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
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: Embedded
(Undetermined Prevalence)
Class: Microcomputer
(Undetermined Prevalence)
Technologies
Class: System on Chip
(Undetermined Prevalence)
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.
Comprehensive Categorization: Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions
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.
Yuan Cao, Yunyi Guo, Benyu Liu, Wei Ge, Min Zhu and Chip-Hong Chang. "A Fully Digital Physical Unclonable Function Based Temperature Sensor for Secure Remote Sensing". 2018-10-11.
<https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8487347/>.
[REF-1183]
Urbi Chatterjee, Soumi Chatterjee, Debdeep Mukhopadhyay and Rajat Subhra Chakraborty. "Machine Learning Assisted PUF Calibration for Trustworthy Proof of Sensor Data in IoT". 2020-06.
<https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3393628>.
(URL validated: 2023-04-07)
Content
History
Submissions
Submission Date
Submitter
Organization
2020-10-23
(CWE 4.5, 2021-07-20)
Paul A. Wortman
Wells Fargo
Modifications
Modification Date
Modifier
Organization
2023-06-29
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
2023-04-27
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2023-01-31
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2022-10-13
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated References, Related_Attack_Patterns
2022-06-28
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2022-04-28
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
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Description
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.
