CWE-1270

Base Abstraction Level
Pillar — Highest-level weakness category
Class — Abstract, language-independent
Base — Specific enough to detect
Variant — Tied to specific technology
Compound — Requires multiple weaknesses Incomplete MITRE CWE Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development, may change
Incomplete — Partially defined by MITRE
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CWE
Generation of Incorrect Security Tokens

Description

The product implements a Security Token mechanism to differentiate what actions are allowed or disallowed when a transaction originates from an entity. However, the Security Tokens generated in the system are incorrect.

Systems-On-a-Chip (SoC) (Integrated circuits and hardware engines) implement Security Tokens to differentiate and identify actions originated from various agents. These actions could be "read", "write", "program", "reset", "fetch", "compute", etc. Security Tokens are generated and assigned to every agent on the SoC that is either capable of generating an action or receiving an action from another agent. Every agent could be assigned a unique, Security Token based on its trust level or privileges.

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Access Control — Modify Files or Directories, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands, Bypass Protection Mechanism, Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Read Memory, Modify Memory, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Incorrectly generated Security Tokens could result in the same token used for multiple agents or multiple tokens being used for the same agent. This condition could result in a Denial-of-Service (DoS) or the execution of an action that in turn could result in privilege escalation or unintended access.

Mitigations

Phase: Architecture and Design, Implementation

Generation of Security Tokens should be reviewed for design inconsistency and common weaknesses. Security-Token definition and programming flow should be tested in pre-silicon and post-silicon testing.