CAPEC-679 Exploitation of Improperly Configured or Implemented Memory Protections

An adversary takes advantage of missing or incorrectly configured access control within memory to read/write data or inject malicious code into said memory.

Hardware product designs often need to implement memory protection features to prevent users from reading and modifying memory reserved for security operations such as secure booting, authenticating code, device attestation, and more. However, these protection features may be missing if not configured by developers. For example, this can occur if the developers assume these features are configured elsewhere. Additionally, developers often attempt to impose proper protection features, but may incorrectly configure these controls. One such example would be setting controls with insufficient granularity for protected address regions. If an adversary is able to discover improper access controls surrounding memory, it could result in the adversary obtaining sensitive data, executing code, circumventing security mechanisms, escalating privileges, or even denying service to higher privilege software.

• Access to the hardware being leveraged.

• [Medium] Ability to craft malicious code to inject into the memory region. • [High] Intricate knowledge of memory structures.

• Integrity: Modify Data • Confidentiality: Read Data • Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability: Execute Unauthorized Commands • Confidentiality, Access Control, Authorization: Gain Privileges

• Ensure that protected and unprotected memory ranges are isolated and do not overlap. • If memory regions must overlap, leverage memory priority schemes if memory regions can overlap. • Ensure that original and mirrored memory regions apply the same protections. • Ensure immutable code or data is programmed into ROM or write-once memory.