Improper Handling of Physical or Environmental Conditions
The product does not properly handle unexpected physical or environmental conditions that occur naturally or are artificially induced.
Description
Hardware products are typically only guaranteed to behave correctly within certain physical limits or environmental conditions. Such products cannot necessarily control the physical or external conditions to which they are subjected. However, the inability to handle such conditions can undermine a product's security. For example, an unexpected physical or environmental condition may cause the flipping of a bit that is used for an authentication decision. This unexpected condition could occur naturally or be induced artificially by an adversary.
Physical or environmental conditions of concern are:
Atmospheric characteristics:
extreme temperature ranges, etc.
Interference:
electromagnetic interference (EMI), radio frequency interference (RFI), etc.
Assorted light sources:
white light, ultra-violet light (UV), lasers, infrared (IR), etc.
Power variances:
under-voltages, over-voltages, under-current, over-current, etc.
Clock variances:
glitching, overclocking, clock stretching, etc.
Component aging and degradation
Materials manipulation:
focused ion beams (FIB), etc.
Exposure to radiation:
x-rays, cosmic radiation, etc.
See Also
Weaknesses in this category are related to improper check or handling of exceptional conditions.
Weaknesses in this category are related to concerns of physical access.
Weaknesses in this category are related to the "External Physical Systems" category from the SEI ETF "Categories of Security Vulnerabilities in ICS" as published in Ma...
This view (slice) covers all the elements in CWE.
This view (slice) lists weaknesses that can be introduced during design.
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