COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONIncomplete

CWE-1384

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.

Abstraction

Class

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product does not properly handle unexpected physical or environmental conditions that occur naturally or are artificially induced.

Extended 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.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

The product's design might not consider checking and handling extreme conditions.

Lifecycle phase

Manufacturing

For hardware manufacturing, sub-par components might be chosen that are not able to handle the expected environmental conditions.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Varies by ContextUnexpected State

Affected security scopes: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability

Consequences of this weakness are highly dependent on the role of affected components within the larger product.

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Requirements

Security requirement

Detail
In requirements, be specific about expectations for how the product will perform when it exceeds physical and environmental boundary conditions, e.g., by shutting down.

Architecture and Design · Implementation

Defence to apply across several lifecycle phases

Detail
Where possible, include independent components that can detect excess environmental conditions and have the capability to shut down the product.

Architecture and Design · Implementation

Defence to apply across several lifecycle phases

Detail
Where possible, use shielding or other materials that can increase the adversary's workload and reduce the likelihood of being able to successfully trigger a security-related failure.