CWE-1292 - Incorrect Conversion of Security Identifiers

Weakness Name

Incorrect Conversion of Security Identifiers

Description

The product implements a conversion mechanism to map certain bus-transaction signals to security identifiers. However, if the conversion is incorrectly implemented, untrusted agents can gain unauthorized access to the asset.

In a System-On-Chip (SoC), various integrated circuits and hardware engines generate transactions such as to access (reads/writes) assets or perform certain actions (e.g., reset, fetch, compute, etc.). Among various types of message information, a typical transaction is comprised of source identity (to identify the originator of the transaction) and a destination identity (to route the transaction to the respective entity). Sometimes the transactions are qualified with a security identifier. This security identifier helps the destination agent decide on the set of allowed actions (e.g., access an asset for read and writes). A typical bus connects several leader and follower agents. Some follower agents implement bus protocols differently from leader agents. A protocol conversion happens at a bridge to seamlessly connect different protocols on the bus. One example is a system that implements a leader with the Advanced High-performance Bus (AHB) protocol and a follower with the Open-Core Protocol (OCP). A bridge AHB-to-OCP is needed to translate the transaction from one form to the other. A common weakness that can exist in this scenario is that this conversion between protocols is implemented incorrectly, whereupon an untrusted agent may gain unauthorized access to an asset.

Common Consequences

Related Weaknesses

CWE-284Improper Access Control

CWE-1294Insecure Security Identifier Mechanism