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CWE Reference

CWE-1242: Inclusion of Undocumented Features or Chicken… | Glexia

CWE-1242 (Inclusion of Undocumented Features or Chicken Bits) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related CVEs and MITRE ATT&CK…

Release 4.20weaknessIncomplete
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Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

CWE-1242: Inclusion of Undocumented Features or Chicken Bits

Inclusion of Undocumented Features or Chicken Bits represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.

Executive Impact

  • Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability,Access Control: Modify Memory,Read Memory,Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands,Gain Privileges or Assume Identity,Bypass Protection Mechanism: An attacker might exploit these interfaces for unauthorized access.

Developer Pattern

CWE-1242 is the kind of defect developers can usually prevent with explicit validation, safer framework defaults, and tests that exercise hostile input or unsafe state transitions.

Automation confidence

high confidence from CWE-1242, 4.20.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official CWE Definition

CWE-1242: Inclusion of Undocumented Features or Chicken Bits

The device includes chicken bits or undocumented features that can create entry points for unauthorized actors.

Type
weakness
Abstraction
Base
Status
Incomplete
Source
MITRE CWE definition

Developer And Remediation Guidance

How teams prevent and detect this weakness

Causes

  • Consider a device that comes with various security measures, such as secure boot. The secure-boot process performs firmware-integrity verification at boot time, and this code is stored in a separate SPI-flash device. However, this code contains undocumented "special access features" intended to be used only for performing failure analysis and intended to only be unlocked by the device designer. Remove all chicken bits and hidden features that are exposed to attackers. Add authorization schemes that rely on cryptographic primitives to access any features that the manufacturer does not want to expose. Clearly document all interfaces.

Remediation

  • Architecture and Design,Implementation:

Detection

  • Code review
  • SAST
  • DAST
  • Focused regression tests

Mappings

Related CVEs, CWEs, and ATT&CK context

Related CWEs

Related CVEs

Related CVE mappings appear after CVE records are cross-indexed.

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ATT&CK Relevance

ATT&CK relevance is shown only when reviewed or responsibly inferred.