CWE-1334: Unauthorized Error Injection Can Degrade Hardware Redundancy

What is Unauthorized Error Injection Can Degrade Hardware Redundancy?

• Overview: Unauthorized Error Injection Can Degrade Hardware Redundancy is a vulnerability where an attacker can inject errors into hardware redundancy systems, causing them to malfunction and degrade system performance or reliability.

• Exploitation Methods:

• Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by gaining access to the system's hardware interfaces and injecting faults or errors into redundant components.
• Common attack patterns include manipulating error detection and correction mechanisms, targeting redundant systems via unauthorized access, and introducing faults intentionally to degrade the system.

• Security Impact:

• Direct consequences of successful exploitation include loss of hardware redundancy, which can lead to system failures or degraded performance.
• Potential cascading effects might include increased susceptibility to additional attacks due to the weakened system state.
• Business impact could be significant, leading to downtime, reduced reliability, and potential loss of data integrity.

• Prevention Guidelines:

• Ensure proper access controls are in place to prevent unauthorized access to hardware components.
• Implement robust error detection and correction mechanisms that are resistant to tampering.
• Regularly audit and monitor for unusual activity that might indicate error injection attempts.
• Use hardware security modules or trusted execution environments to protect critical redundancy paths.
• Adopt design principles that emphasize fault tolerance and resilience against error injection attacks.

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Technical Details

Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified

Affected Languages: Not Language-Specific

Affected Technologies: Not Technology-Specific

Vulnerable Code Example

class HardwareMonitor:
    def __init__(self):
        self.redundant_blocks = [True] * 3  # Assume a system with 3 redundant blocks

    def inject_error(self, block_index):
        # Vulnerable: No check on user permissions before allowing error injection
        if 0 <= block_index < len(self.redundant_blocks):
            self.redundant_blocks[block_index] = False  # Error injection degrades redundancy

Comments:

• This code allows any user to inject errors into hardware redundancy blocks without any permission checks, potentially degrading the system's redundancy capabilities. This lack of authorization control can lead to unauthorized tampering with critical system components.

How to fix Unauthorized Error Injection Can Degrade Hardware Redundancy?

To fix this vulnerability, it is crucial to implement proper authorization checks before allowing any modification to critical system components like redundant hardware blocks. This can be achieved by:

1. Implementing User Authentication and Authorization: Ensure that only authorized users can perform sensitive operations such as error injection.
2. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Assign roles with specific permissions and verify that the user has the necessary role to execute the action.
3. Logging and Monitoring: Maintain logs of all attempts to modify hardware settings for auditing purposes.

Fixed Code Example

class HardwareMonitor:
    def __init__(self):
        self.redundant_blocks = [True] * 3  # Assume a system with 3 redundant blocks
        self.authorized_users = {'admin'}  # Example of authorized roles

    def check_authorization(self, user_role):
        # Check if the user role is authorized to perform error injection
        return user_role in self.authorized_users

    def inject_error(self, block_index, user_role):
        # Fixed: Adding authorization check before allowing error injection
        if not self.check_authorization(user_role):
            raise PermissionError("Unauthorized access attempt detected!")

        if 0 <= block_index < len(self.redundant_blocks):
            self.redundant_blocks[block_index] = False  # Error injection with authorization
            print(f"Error injected into block {block_index} by {user_role}")
        else:
            raise IndexError("Block index out of range")

Comments:

• The fixed version introduces an authorization check using a simple role-based access control mechanism. Only users with the 'admin' role can inject errors into the redundant blocks.
• Unauthorized attempts are blocked, raising a PermissionError. This prevents unauthorized access and potential degradation of system redundancy.
• By implementing these checks, the system ensures that only trusted users can perform potentially harmful operations, thus maintaining the integrity and reliability of the hardware redundancy.