CAPEC-679 Exploitation of Improperly Configured or Implemented Memory Protections

CAPEC ID: 679

CAPEC-679 Metadata

Likelihood of Attack

Medium

Typical Severity

Very High

Overview

Summary

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

Prerequisites

Access to the hardware being leveraged.

Potential Solutions / Mitigations

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.

Related Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE ID Description
CWE-1222 Insufficient Granularity of Address Regions Protected by Register Locks
CWE-1252 CPU Hardware Not Configured to Support Exclusivity of Write and Execute Operations
CWE-1257 Improper Access Control Applied to Mirrored or Aliased Memory Regions
CWE-1260 Improper Handling of Overlap Between Protected Memory Ranges
CWE-1274 Improper Access Control for Volatile Memory Containing Boot Code
CWE-1282 Assumed-Immutable Data is Stored in Writable Memory
CWE-1312 Missing Protection for Mirrored Regions in On-Chip Fabric Firewall
CWE-1316 Fabric-Address Map Allows Programming of Unwarranted Overlaps of Protected and Unprotected Ranges
CWE-1326 Missing Immutable Root of Trust in Hardware

Related CAPECs

CAPEC ID Description
CAPEC-1 In applications, particularly web applications, access to functionality is mitigated by an authorization framework. This framework maps Access Control Lists (ACLs) to elements of the application's functionality; particularly URL's for web apps. In the case that the administrator failed to specify an ACL for a particular element, an attacker may be able to access it with impunity. An attacker with the ability to access functionality not properly constrained by ACLs can obtain sensitive information and possibly compromise the entire application. Such an attacker can access resources that must be available only to users at a higher privilege level, can access management sections of the application, or can run queries for data that they otherwise not supposed to.
CAPEC-180 An attacker exploits a weakness in the configuration of access controls and is able to bypass the intended protection that these measures guard against and thereby obtain unauthorized access to the system or network. Sensitive functionality should always be protected with access controls. However configuring all but the most trivial access control systems can be very complicated and there are many opportunities for mistakes. If an attacker can learn of incorrectly configured access security settings, they may be able to exploit this in an attack.

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