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CWE-1332 - Improper Handling of Faults that Lead to Instruction Skips

CWE-1332

  • Abstraction:
  • Base
  • Structure:
  • Simple
  • Status:
  • Stable
Weakness Name

Improper Handling of Faults that Lead to Instruction Skips

Description

The device is missing or incorrectly implements circuitry or sensors that detect and mitigate the skipping of security-critical CPU instructions when they occur.

The operating conditions of hardware may change in ways that cause unexpected behavior to occur, including the skipping of security-critical CPU instructions. Generally, this can occur due to electrical disturbances or when the device operates outside of its expected conditions. In practice, application code may contain conditional branches that are security-sensitive (e.g., accepting or rejecting a user-provided password). These conditional branches are typically implemented by a single conditional branch instruction in the program binary which, if skipped, may lead to effectively flipping the branch condition - i.e., causing the wrong security-sensitive branch to be taken. This affects processes such as firmware authentication, password verification, and other security-sensitive decision points. Attackers can use fault injection techniques to alter the operating conditions of hardware so that security-critical instructions are skipped more frequently or more reliably than they would in a "natural" setting.

Common Consequences

Scope: Confidentiality, Integrity, Authentication

Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism, Alter Execution Logic, Unexpected State

Notes: Depending on the context, instruction skipping can have a broad range of consequences related to the generic bypassing of security critical code.

Related Weaknesses
  • Release Date:
  • 2020-12-10
  • Latest Modification Date:
  • 2023-06-29

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