CWE-1429

The product has a hardware interface that silently discards operations in situations for which feedback would be security-relevant, such as the timely detection of failures or attacks.

{"xhtml:p":["While some systems intentionally withhold feedback as a security\n\t\t\t measure, this approach must be strictly controlled to ensure it does\n\t\t\t not obscure operational failures that require prompt detection and\n\t\t\t remediation. Without these essential confirmations, failures go\n\t\t\t undetected, increasing the risk of data loss, security\n\t\t\t vulnerabilities, and overall system instability. Even when withholding\n\t\t\t feedback is an intentional part of a security policy designed, for\n\t\t\t example, to prevent attackers from gleaning sensitive internal\n\t\t\t details, the absence of expected feedback becomes a critical weakness\n\t\t\t when it masks operational failures that require prompt detection and\n\t\t\t remediation.","For instance, certain encryption algorithms always return ciphertext\n\t\t\t regardless of errors to prevent attackers from gaining insight into\n\t\t\t internal state details. However, if such an algorithm fails to\n\t\t\t generate the expected ciphertext and provides no error feedback, the\n\t\t\t system cannot distinguish between a legitimate output and a\n\t\t\t malfunction. This can lead to undetected cryptographic failures,\n\t\t\t potentially compromising data security and system reliability. Without\n\t\t\t proper notification, a critical failure might remain hidden,\n\t\t\t undermining both the reliability and security of the process.","Therefore, this weakness captures issues across various hardware\n\t\t\t interfaces where operations are discarded without any feedback, error\n\t\t\t handling, or logging. Such omissions can lead to data loss, security\n\t\t\t vulnerabilities, and system instability, with potential impacts\n\t\t\t ranging from minor to catastrophic.","For some kinds of hardware products, some errors may be correctly\n\t\t\t identified and subsequently discarded, and the lack of feedback may\n\t\t\t have been an intentional design decision. However, this could result\n\t\t\t in a weakness if system operators or other authorized entities are not\n\t\t\t provided feedback about security-critical operations or failures that\n\t\t\t could prevent the operators from detecting and responding to an\n\t\t\t attack.","For example:"],"xhtml:ul":[{"xhtml:li":["In a System-on-Chip (SoC) platform, write operations to reserved\n\t\t\t memory addresses might be correctly identified as invalid and\n\t\t\t subsequently discarded. However, if no feedback is provided to\n\t\t\t system operators, they may misinterpret the device's state, failing\n\t\t\t to recognize conditions that could lead to broader failures or\n\t\t\t security vulnerabilities. For example, if an attacker attempts\n\t\t\t unauthorized writes to protected regions, the system may silently\n\t\t\t discard these writes without alerting security mechanisms. This lack\n\t\t\t of feedback could obscure intrusion attempts or misconfigurations,\n\t\t\t increasing the risk of unnoticed system compromise","Microcontroller Interrupt Systems: When interrupts are silently\n\t\t\t ignored due to priority conflicts or internal errors without\n\t\t\t notifying higher-level control, it becomes challenging to diagnose\n\t\t\t system failures or detect potential security breaches in a timely\n\t\t\t manner.","Network Interface Controllers: Dropping packets - perhaps due to\n\t\t\t buffer overflows - without any error feedback can not only cause data\n\t\t\t loss but may also contribute to exploitable timing discrepancies\n\t\t\t that reveal sensitive internal processing details."]}]}

Applicable Platforms