CWE-1271: Uninitialized Value on Reset for Registers… | Glexia
CWE-1271 (Uninitialized Value on Reset for Registers Holding Security Settings) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related CVEs…
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis
CWE-1271: Uninitialized Value on Reset for Registers Holding Security Settings
Uninitialized Value on Reset for Registers Holding Security Settings represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Access Control Authentication Authorization: Varies by Context
Developer Pattern
CWE-1271 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-1271, 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-1271: Uninitialized Value on Reset for Registers Holding Security Settings
Security-critical logic is not set to a known value on reset.
When the device is first brought out of reset, the state of registers will be indeterminate if they have not been initialized by the logic. Before the registers are initialized, there will be a window during which the device is in an insecure state and may be vulnerable to attack.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- Shown below is a positive clock edge triggered flip-flop used to implement a lock bit for test and debug interface. When the circuit is first brought out of reset, the state of the flip-flop will be unknown until the enable input and D-input signals update the flip-flop state. In this example, an attacker can reset the device until the test and debug interface is unlocked and access the test interface until the lock signal is driven to a known state by the logic. The flip-flop can be set to a known value (0 or 1) on reset, but requires that the logic explicitly update the output of the flip-flop if the reset signal is active.
Remediation
- Implementation: Design checks should be performed to identify any uninitialized flip-flops used for security-critical functions.
- Architecture and Design: All registers holding security-critical information should be set to a specific value on reset.
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.