COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-671

Requirements for ASIC Functionality Maliciously Altered

An adversary with access to functional requirements for an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a chip designed/customized for a singular particular use, maliciously alters requirements derived from originating capability needs. In the chip manufacturing process, requirements drive the chip design which, when the chip is fully manufactured, could result in an ASIC which may not meet the user’s needs, contain malicious functionality, or exhibit other anomalous behaviors thereby affecting the intended use of the ASIC.

Abstraction

Detailed

Typical severity

High

Likelihood of attack

Low

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An adversary with access to functional requirements for an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a chip designed/customized for a singular particular use, maliciously alters requirements derived from originating capability needs. In the chip manufacturing process, requirements drive the chip design which, when the chip is fully manufactured, could result in an ASIC which may not meet the user’s needs, contain malicious functionality, or exhibit other anomalous behaviors thereby affecting the intended use of the ASIC.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • An adversary would need to have access to a foundry’s or chip maker’s requirements management system that stores customer requirements for ASICs, requirements upon which the design of the ASIC is based.

Skills required

  • High: An adversary would need experience in designing chips based on functional requirements in order to manipulate requirements in such a way that deviations would not be detected in subsequent stages of ASIC manufacture and where intended malicious functionality would be available to the adversary once integrated into a system and fielded.

Resources required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Impact

What does a successful attack lead to?

Alter Execution Logic

Affected scopes: Integrity

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

1
Utilize DMEA’s (Defense Microelectronics Activity) Trusted Foundry Program members for acquisition of microelectronic components.
2
Ensure that each supplier performing hardware development implements comprehensive, security-focused configuration management including for hardware requirements and design.
3
Require that provenance of COTS microelectronic components be known whenever procured.
4
Conduct detailed vendor assessment before acquiring COTS hardware.

Real world

MITRE example instances

Example instance 1Detail
An adversary with access to ASIC functionality requirements for various customers, targets a particular customer’s ordered lot of ASICs by altering its functional requirements such that the ASIC design will result in a manufactured chip that does not meet the customer’s capability needs.