MetaSeverity: HighCAPEC-624

CAPEC-624: Hardware Fault Injection

Description

The adversary uses disruptive signals or events, or alters the physical environment a device operates in, to cause faulty behavior in electronic devices. This can include electromagnetic pulses, laser pulses, clock glitches, ambient temperature extremes, and more. When performed in a controlled manner on devices performing cryptographic operations, this faulty behavior can be exploited to derive secret key information.

Likelihood of attack: Low
Typical severity: High
Abstraction: MetaA decidedly abstract characterisation of a methodology or technique.

Mechanism of attack: Inject Unexpected Items

Prerequisites

Physical access to the system
The adversary must be cognizant of where fault injection vulnerabilities exist in the system in order to leverage them for exploitation.

Skills required

HighAdversaries require non-trivial technical skills to create and implement fault injection attacks. Although this style of attack has become easier (commercial equipment and training classes are available to perform these attacks), they usual require significant setup and experimentation time during which physical access to the device is required.

Consequences

Confidentiality
Read Data; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Hide Activities
An adversary capable of successfully collecting and analyzing sensitive, fault/side-channel information, has compromised the confidentiality of that application or information system data.
Integrity
Execute Unauthorized Commands
If an adversary is able to inject data via a fault or side channel vulnerability towards malicious ends, the integrity of the application or information system will be compromised.

Mitigations

Implement robust physical security countermeasures and monitoring.

Related weaknesses (CWE)

Related attack patterns

More specific patterns

CAPEC-625Mobile Device Fault InjectionStandard

Description

Skills required

HighAdversaries require non-trivial technical skills to create and implement fault injection attacks. Although this style of attack has become easier (commercial equipment and training classes are available to perform these attacks), they usual require significant setup and experimentation time during which physical access to the device is required.

Consequences

Confidentiality

Read Data; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Hide Activities

An adversary capable of successfully collecting and analyzing sensitive, fault/side-channel information, has compromised the confidentiality of that application or information system data.

Integrity

Execute Unauthorized Commands

If an adversary is able to inject data via a fault or side channel vulnerability towards malicious ends, the integrity of the application or information system will be compromised.