COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-518

Documentation Alteration to Produce Under-performing Systems

An attacker with access to a manufacturer's documentation alters the descriptions of system capabilities with the intent of causing errors in derived system requirements, impacting the overall effectiveness and capability of the system, allowing an attacker to take advantage of the introduced system capability flaw once the system is deployed.

Abstraction

Detailed

Typical severity

High

Likelihood of attack

Low

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An attacker with access to a manufacturer's documentation alters the descriptions of system capabilities with the intent of causing errors in derived system requirements, impacting the overall effectiveness and capability of the system, allowing an attacker to take advantage of the introduced system capability flaw once the system is deployed.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • Advanced knowledge of software and hardware capabilities of a manufacturer's product.
  • Access to the manufacturer's documentation.

Skills required

  • High: Ability to read, interpret, and subsequently alter manufacturer's documentation to misrepresent system capabilities.
  • High: Ability to stealthly gain access via remote compromise or physical access to the manufacturer's documentation.

Resources required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

1
Digitize documents and cryptographically sign them to verify authenticity.
2
Password protect documents and make them read-only for unauthorized users.
3
Avoid emailing important documents and configurations.
4
Ensure deleted files are actually deleted.
5
Maintain backups of the document for recovery and verification.
6
Separate need-to-know information from system configuration information depending on the user.

Real world

MITRE example instances

Example instance 1Detail
A security subsystem involving encryption is a part of a product, but due to the demands of this subsystem during operation, the subsystem only runs when a specific amount of memory and processing is available. An attacker alters the descriptions of the system capabilities so that when deployed with the minimal requirements at the victim location, the encryption subsystem is never operational, leaving the system in a weakened security state.