CWE-1282: Assumed-Immutable Data is Stored in Writable… | Glexia
CWE-1282 (Assumed-Immutable Data is Stored in Writable Memory) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related CVEs and MITRE ATT&CK…
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis
CWE-1282: Assumed-Immutable Data is Stored in Writable Memory
Assumed-Immutable Data is Stored in Writable Memory represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Integrity: Varies by Context
Developer Pattern
CWE-1282 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-1282, 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-1282: Assumed-Immutable Data is Stored in Writable Memory
Immutable data, such as a first-stage bootloader, device identifiers, and "write-once" configuration settings are stored in writable memory that can be re-programmed or updated in the field.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- Cryptographic hash functions are commonly used to create unique fixed-length digests used to ensure the integrity of code and keys. A golden digest is stored on the device and compared to the digest computed from the data to be verified. If the digests match, the data has not been maliciously modified. If an attacker can modify the golden digest they then have the ability to store arbitrary data that passes the verification check. Hash digests used to verify public keys and early stage boot code should be immutable, with the strongest protection offered by hardware immutability.
Remediation
- Implementation: All immutable code or data should be programmed into ROM or write-once memory.
Detection
- Code review
- SAST
- DAST
- Focused regression tests
Mappings
Related CVEs, CWEs, and ATT&CK context
Related CWEs
ATT&CK Relevance
ATT&CK relevance is shown only when reviewed or responsibly inferred.