Processor Optimization Removal or Modification of Security-critical Code

Opis

The developer builds a security-critical protection mechanism into the software, but the processor optimizes the execution of the program such that the mechanism is removed or modified.

Skutki

• Integrity

  Bypass Protection Mechanism

  A successful exploitation of this weakness will change the order of an application's execution and will likely be used to bypass specific protection mechanisms. This bypass can be exploited further to potentially read data that should otherwise be unaccessible.

Przykłady podatności

• CVE-2017-5715 Intel, ARM, and AMD processor optimizations related to speculative execution and branch prediction cause access control checks to be bypassed when placing data into the cache. Often known as "Spectre".
• CVE-2017-5753 Intel, ARM, and AMD processor optimizations related to speculative execution and branch prediction cause access control checks to be bypassed when placing data into the cache. Often known as "Spectre".
• CVE-2017-5754 Intel processor optimizations related to speculative execution cause access control checks to be bypassed when placing data into the cache. Often known as "Meltdown".

Słabość nadrzędna

• CWE-1038 Insecure Automated Optimizations

Kiedy powstaje

• Architecture and Design — Optimizations built into the design of the processor can have unintended consequences during the execution of an application.

Dotyczy

Not Language-Specific, Processor Hardware

Uwagi

As of CWE 4.9, members of the CWE Hardware SIG are closely analyzing this entry and others to improve CWE's coverage of transient execution weaknesses, which include issues related to Spectre, Meltdown, and other attacks. Additional investigation may include other weaknesses related to microarchitectural state. As a result, this entry might change significantly in CWE 4.10.

Źródła

1. Spectre Attacks: Exploiting Speculative Execution — Paul Kocher, Daniel Genkin, Daniel Gruss, Werner Haas, Mike Hamburg, Moritz Lipp, Stefan Mangard, Thomas Prescher, Michael Schwarz, Yuval Yarom, 2018
2. Meltdown — Moritz Lipp, Michael Schwarz, Daniel Gruss, Thomas Prescher, Werner Haas, Stefan Mangard, Paul Kocher, Daniel Genkin, Yuval Yarom, Mike Hamburg, 2018