COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONIncomplete

CWE-1276

Hardware Child Block Incorrectly Connected to Parent System

Signals between a hardware IP and the parent system design are incorrectly connected causing security risks.

Abstraction

Base

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

Signals between a hardware IP and the parent system design are incorrectly connected causing security risks.

Extended description

Individual hardware IP must communicate with the parent system in order for the product to function correctly and as intended. If implemented incorrectly, while not causing any apparent functional issues, may cause security issues. For example, if the IP should only be reset by a system-wide hard reset, but instead the reset input is connected to a software-triggered debug mode reset (which is also asserted during a hard reset), integrity of data inside the IP can be violated.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

This weakness is introduced when integrating IP into a parent design.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Varies by Context

Affected security scopes: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Testing

Testing and verification approach

Detail
System-level verification may be used to ensure that components are correctly connected and that design security requirements are not violated due to interactions between various IP blocks.