CWE-1332 Base Estable

Improper Handling of Faults that Lead to Instruction Skips

This vulnerability occurs when a hardware device lacks or incorrectly implements the necessary circuitry or sensors to detect and respond to the skipping of critical security instructions during CPU…

Definición

What is CWE-1332?

This vulnerability occurs when a hardware device lacks or incorrectly implements the necessary circuitry or sensors to detect and respond to the skipping of critical security instructions during CPU execution.
Hardware can behave unpredictably under certain operating conditions, such as during electrical disturbances or when pushed beyond its normal specifications. These conditions can cause the CPU to skip crucial security instructions, effectively bypassing the logic they were meant to enforce. In practice, this often targets single conditional branch instructions that control security decisions—like password verification or firmware authentication—flipping the intended outcome if skipped. Attackers exploit this by using fault injection techniques to deliberately induce these unstable operating conditions, making instruction skips happen more reliably and frequently than they would naturally. This allows them to manipulate security-critical decision points, such as bypassing authentication checks or altering firmware validation processes.
Impacto en el mundo real

Real-world CVEs caused by CWE-1332

  • CVE-2019-15894

    fault injection attack bypasses the verification mode, potentially allowing arbitrary code execution.

Cómo lo explotan los atacantes

Ruta del atacante paso a paso

  1. 1

    Identifica una ruta de código que maneje entrada no confiable sin validación.

  2. 2

    Crea un payload que ejercite el comportamiento inseguro — inyección, traversal, overflow o abuso de lógica.

  3. 3

    Envía el payload a través de una solicitud normal y observa la reacción de la aplicación.

  4. 4

    Itera hasta que la respuesta filtre datos, ejecute código del atacante o escale privilegios.

Ejemplo de código vulnerable

Vulnerable Other

A smart card contains authentication credentials that are used as authorization to enter a building. The credentials are only accessible when a correct PIN is presented to the card.

Vulnerable Other 
The card emits the credentials when a voltage anomaly is injected into the power line to the device at a particular time after providing an incorrect PIN to the card, causing the internal program to accept the incorrect PIN.
Ejemplo de código seguro

Secure Other

There are several ways this weakness could be fixed.

Seguro Other 
- add an internal filter or internal power supply in series with the power supply pin on the device

  - add sensing circuitry to reset the device if out of tolerance conditions are detected

  - add additional execution sensing circuits to monitor the execution order for anomalies and abort the action or reset the device under fault conditions
What changed: the unsafe sink is replaced (or the input is validated/escaped) so the same payload no longer triggers the weakness.
Lista de prevención

How to prevent CWE-1332

  • Architecture and Design Design strategies for ensuring safe failure if inputs, such as Vcc, are modified out of acceptable ranges.
  • Architecture and Design Design strategies for ensuring safe behavior if instructions attempt to be skipped.
  • Architecture and Design Identify mission critical secrets that should be wiped if faulting is detected, and design a mechanism to do the deletion.
  • Implementation Add redundancy by performing an operation multiple times, either in space or time, and perform majority voting. Additionally, make conditional instruction timing unpredictable.
  • Implementation Use redundant operations or canaries to detect and respond to faults.
  • Implementation Ensure that fault mitigations are strong enough in practice. For example, a low power detection mechanism that takes 50 clock cycles to trigger at lower voltages may be an insufficient security mechanism if the instruction counter has already progressed with no other CPU activity occurring.
Señales de detección

How to detect CWE-1332

Automated Static Analysis Moderate

This weakness can be found using automated static analysis once a developer has indicated which code paths are critical to protect.

Simulation / Emulation Moderate

This weakness can be found using automated dynamic analysis. Both emulation of a CPU with instruction skips, as well as RTL simulation of a CPU IP, can indicate parts of the code that are sensitive to faults due to instruction skips.

Manual Analysis Moderate

This weakness can be found using manual (static) analysis. The analyst has security objectives that are matched against the high-level code. This method is less precise than emulation, especially if the analysis is done at the higher level language rather than at assembly level.

Auto-corrección de Plexicus

Plexicus detecta automáticamente CWE-1332 y abre un PR de corrección en menos de 60 segundos.

Codex Remedium escanea cada commit, identifica esta debilidad concreta y entrega un pull request listo para revisión con el parche. Sin tickets. Sin traspasos.

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Preguntas frecuentes

Frequently asked questions

¿Qué es CWE-1332?

This vulnerability occurs when a hardware device lacks or incorrectly implements the necessary circuitry or sensors to detect and respond to the skipping of critical security instructions during CPU execution.

¿Qué gravedad tiene CWE-1332?

MITRE no ha publicado una calificación de probabilidad de explotación para esta debilidad. Trátala como de impacto medio hasta que tu modelo de amenazas demuestre lo contrario.

¿Qué lenguajes o plataformas se ven afectados por CWE-1332?

MITRE lists the following affected platforms: Not OS-Specific, Not Architecture-Specific, System on Chip.

¿Cómo puedo prevenir CWE-1332?

Design strategies for ensuring safe failure if inputs, such as Vcc, are modified out of acceptable ranges. Design strategies for ensuring safe behavior if instructions attempt to be skipped.

¿Cómo detecta y corrige Plexicus CWE-1332?

El motor SAST de Plexicus detecta la firma de flujo de datos para CWE-1332 en cada commit. Cuando hay coincidencia, nuestro agente Codex Remedium abre un PR de corrección con el código corregido, las pruebas y un resumen de una línea para el revisor.

¿Dónde puedo aprender más sobre CWE-1332?

MITRE publica la definición canónica en https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/1332.html. También puedes consultar la documentación de OWASP y NIST para guías relacionadas.

Debilidades relacionadas

Weaknesses related to CWE-1332

CWE-1384 Padre

Improper Handling of Physical or Environmental Conditions

This weakness occurs when a hardware device fails to manage unexpected physical or environmental situations, whether they happen naturally…

CWE-1247 Hermano

Improper Protection Against Voltage and Clock Glitches

This vulnerability occurs when a hardware device lacks proper physical safeguards against deliberate electrical manipulation. Without…

CWE-1261 Hermano

Improper Handling of Single Event Upsets

This vulnerability occurs when hardware logic fails to properly manage single-event upsets (SEUs), which are temporary bit flips caused by…

CWE-1351 Hermano

Improper Handling of Hardware Behavior in Exceptionally Cold Environments

This weakness occurs when a hardware device or its firmware lacks proper safeguards to maintain security functions when operated in…

Recursos

Further reading

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