CAPEC-625: Mobile Device Fault Injection

Description

Fault injection attacks against mobile devices use disruptive signals or events (e.g. electromagnetic pulses, laser pulses, clock glitches, etc.) to cause faulty behavior. When performed in a controlled manner on devices performing cryptographic operations, this faulty behavior can be exploited to derive secret key information. Although this attack usually requires physical control of the mobile device, it is non-destructive, and the device can be used after the attack without any indication that secret keys were compromised.

Likelihood of attack: Not rated by MITRE
Typical severity: Not rated by MITRE
Abstraction: StandardA specific methodology or technique used in an attack.

Mechanism of attack: Inject Unexpected Items

Skills required

HighAdversaries require non-trivial technical skills to create and implement fault injection attacks on mobile devices. 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. This prerequisite makes the attack...

Consequences

ConfidentialityAccess Control
Read Data
Extract long-term secret keys (e.g. keys used for VPN or WiFi authentication and encryption) to enable decryption of intercepted VOIP traffic.

Mitigations

Strong physical security of all devices that contain secret key information. (even when devices are not in use)
Frequent changes to secret keys and certificates.

Related weaknesses (CWE)

Related attack patterns

Parent

CAPEC-624Hardware Fault InjectionMeta

Description

Skills required

HighAdversaries require non-trivial technical skills to create and implement fault injection attacks on mobile devices. 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. This prerequisite makes the attack...