CWE-1319: Improper Protection against Electromagnetic Fault Injection (EM-FI)

Definition

What is CWE-1319?

This vulnerability occurs when a hardware device lacks sufficient shielding against electromagnetic interference, allowing attackers to disrupt its internal operations. By inducing targeted electromagnetic pulses, an attacker can force the device to malfunction, potentially bypassing security checks or leaking sensitive data.

Electromagnetic Fault Injection (EM-FI) is a physical attack where an attacker uses a controlled electromagnetic pulse near a device's integrated circuit. This pulse induces unexpected currents in the chip's wiring, temporarily disrupting normal execution. This manipulation can force the hardware into an erroneous state, allowing an attacker to influence its behavior during critical security operations. Successful EM-FI attacks can have severe consequences, including bypassing secure boot or debug locks, altering program execution to skip authentication, leaking cryptographic keys or other secrets from memory, and corrupting the output of security-critical components like hardware random number generators. These faults are highly localized and precise, often requiring specialized equipment but posing a significant threat to devices accessible to an attacker with physical access.

Auswirkungen in der Praxis

Real-world CVEs caused by CWE-1319

CVE-2020-27211

Chain: microcontroller system-on-chip uses a register value stored in flash to set product protection state on the memory bus and does not contain protection against fault injection (CWE-1319) which leads to an incorrect initialization of the memory bus (CWE-1419) causing the product to be in an unprotected state.

Wie Angreifer es ausnutzen

Angreiferpfad Schritt für Schritt

1
Identifiziere einen Codepfad, der nicht vertrauenswürdige Eingaben ohne Validierung verarbeitet.
2
Erzeuge eine Payload, die das unsichere Verhalten auslöst — Injection, Traversal, Overflow oder Logik-Missbrauch.
3
Liefere die Payload über einen normalen Request aus und beobachte die Reaktion der Anwendung.
4
Iteriere, bis die Antwort Daten preisgibt, Angreifer-Code ausführt oder Berechtigungen eskaliert.

Verwundbares Codebeispiel

Vulnerable pseudo

MITRE hat kein Codebeispiel für diese CWE veröffentlicht. Das untenstehende Muster ist illustrativ — kanonische Referenzen findest du unter Ressourcen.

Verwundbar pseudo

// Example pattern — see MITRE for the canonical references.
function handleRequest(input) {
  // Untrusted input flows directly into the sensitive sink.
  return executeUnsafe(input);
}

Sicheres Codebeispiel

Secure pseudo

Sicher pseudo

// Validate, sanitize, or use a safe API before reaching the sink.
function handleRequest(input) {
  const safe = validateAndEscape(input);
  return executeWithGuards(safe);
}

What changed: the unsafe sink is replaced (or the input is validated/escaped) so the same payload no longer triggers the weakness.

Präventions-Checkliste

How to prevent CWE-1319

Architecture and Design / Implementation - 1. Redundancy - By replicating critical operations and comparing the two outputs can help indicate whether a fault has been injected. - 2. Error detection and correction codes - Gay, Mael, et al. proposed a new scheme that not only detects faults injected by a malicious adversary but also automatically corrects single nibble/byte errors introduced by low-multiplicity faults. - 3. Fail by default coding - When checking conditions (switch or if) check all possible cases and fail by default because the default case in a switch (or the else part of a cascaded if-else-if construct) is used for dealing with the last possible (and valid) value without checking. This is prone to fault injection because this alternative is easily selected as a result of potential data manipulation [REF-1141]. - 4. Random Behavior - adding random delays before critical operations, so that timing is not predictable. - 5. Program Flow Integrity Protection - The program flow can be secured by integrating run-time checking aiming at detecting control flow inconsistencies. One such example is tagging the source code to indicate the points not to be bypassed [REF-1147]. - 6. Sensors - Usage of sensors can detect variations in voltage and current. - 7. Shields - physical barriers to protect the chips from malicious manipulation.

Erkennungssignale

How to detect CWE-1319

SAST High

Führe statische Analyse (SAST) auf der Codebasis aus und suche im Datenfluss nach dem unsicheren Muster.

DAST Moderate

Führe dynamische Application-Security-Tests gegen den Live-Endpoint aus.

Runtime Moderate

Beobachte Runtime-Logs auf ungewöhnliche Exception-Traces, fehlerhafte Eingaben oder Versuche, Autorisierung zu umgehen.

Code review Moderate

Code Review: Markiere jeden neuen Code, der Eingaben von dieser Oberfläche ohne validierte Framework-Helper verarbeitet.

CWE-1319

Don't catalog this weakness. Prove it's reachable.

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Häufig gestellte Fragen

Frequently asked questions

Was ist CWE-1319?

This vulnerability occurs when a hardware device lacks sufficient shielding against electromagnetic interference, allowing attackers to disrupt its internal operations. By inducing targeted electromagnetic pulses, an attacker can force the device to malfunction, potentially bypassing security checks or leaking sensitive data.

Wie gravierend ist CWE-1319?

MITRE hat für diese Schwachstelle keine Exploit-Wahrscheinlichkeit veröffentlicht. Behandle sie als mittlere Auswirkung, bis dein Threat Model anderes belegt.

Welche Sprachen oder Plattformen sind von CWE-1319 betroffen?

MITRE lists the following affected platforms: Not OS-Specific, Not Architecture-Specific, System on Chip, Microcontroller Hardware, Memory Hardware, Power Management Hardware, Processor Hardware, Test/Debug Hardware.

Wie kann ich CWE-1319 verhindern?

- 1. Redundancy - By replicating critical operations and comparing the two outputs can help indicate whether a fault has been injected. - 2. Error detection and correction codes - Gay, Mael, et al. proposed a new scheme that not only detects faults injected by a malicious adversary but also automatically corrects single nibble/byte errors introduced by low-multiplicity faults. - 3. Fail by default coding - When checking conditions (switch or if) check all possible cases and fail by default…

Wie erkennt und behebt Plexicus CWE-1319?

Die SAST-Engine von Plexicus erkennt die Datenfluss-Signatur von CWE-1319 bei jedem Commit. Bei einem Treffer öffnet unser Codex-Remedium-Agent einen Fix-PR mit korrigiertem Code, Tests und einer einzeiligen Zusammenfassung für den Reviewer.

Wo erfahre ich mehr über CWE-1319?

MITRE veröffentlicht die kanonische Definition unter https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/1319.html. Für ergänzende Hinweise kannst du auch die OWASP- und NIST-Dokumentation heranziehen.

Verwandte Schwachstellen

Weaknesses related to CWE-1319

CWE-693 Parent

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Improper Protection against Electromagnetic Fault Injection (EM-FI)

What is CWE-1319?

Real-world CVEs caused by CWE-1319

Angreiferpfad Schritt für Schritt

Vulnerable pseudo

Secure pseudo

How to prevent CWE-1319

How to detect CWE-1319

Don't catalog this weakness. Prove it's reachable.

Frequently asked questions

Weaknesses related to CWE-1319

Protection Mechanism Failure

Inadequate Detection or Handling of Adversarial Input Perturbations in Automated Recognition Mechanism

Semiconductor Defects in Hardware Logic with Security-Sensitive Implications

Incorrect Selection of Fuse Values

Product Released in Non-Release Configuration

Missing Protection Against Hardware Reverse Engineering Using Integrated Circuit (IC) Imaging Techniques

Public Key Re-Use for Signing both Debug and Production Code

Missing Support for Security Features in On-chip Fabrics or Buses

Missing Immutable Root of Trust in Hardware

Further reading

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Sample evidence handover

Server-Side Request Forgery in `webhooks/receiver`