CWEweakness
CWE-1384 Improper Handling of Physical or Environmental Conditions
- Abstraction
- Class
- Structure
- Simple
- Status
- Incomplete
- CWE version
- 5.0
Description
The product does not properly handle unexpected physical or environmental conditions that occur naturally or are artificially induced.
Common consequences
• Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability: Varies by Context, Unexpected State — Consequences of this weakness are highly dependent on the role of affected components within the larger product.
Potential mitigations
• [Requirements] 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] Where possible, include independent components that can detect excess environmental conditions and have the capability to shut down the product.
• [Architecture and Design, Implementation] 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.
Observed examples
• CVE-2019-17391: Lack of anti-glitch protections allows an attacker to launch a physical attack to bypass the secure boot and read protected eFuses.
Related
Observed example · CVE (1)
- CVE-2019-17391 An issue was discovered in the Espressif ESP32 mask ROM code 2016-06-08 0 through 2. vulnerability
Child of · CWE (1)
- CWE-703 Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions weakness
Referenced by CVE · weakness (6)
- CVE-2026-49325 Improper handling of physical conditions in the bike-shutdown control of the Indian Motorcycle Scout Bobber + Tech 2025 model year allows a… vulnerability
- CVE-2026-2757 Incorrect boundary conditions in the WebRTC: Audio/Video component. vulnerability
- CVE-2026-2759 Incorrect boundary conditions in the Graphics: ImageLib component. vulnerability
- CVE-2026-2760 Sandbox escape due to incorrect boundary conditions in the Graphics: WebRender component. vulnerability
- CVE-2025-52557 Mail-0's Zero is an open-source email solution. vulnerability
- CVE-2024-39355 Improper handling of physical or environmental conditions in some Intel(R) Processors may allow an authenticated user to enable denial of… vulnerability
Referenced by CWE · child of (5)
- CWE-1247 Improper Protection Against Voltage and Clock Glitches weakness
- CWE-1261 Improper Handling of Single Event Upsets weakness
- CWE-1332 Improper Handling of Faults that Lead to Instruction Skips weakness
- CWE-1338 Improper Protections Against Hardware Overheating weakness
- CWE-1351 Improper Handling of Hardware Behavior in Exceptionally Cold Environments weakness