CWE-1302: Missing Source Identifier in Entity… | Glexia
CWE-1302 (Missing Source Identifier in Entity Transactions on a System-On-Chip (SOC)) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related…
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis
CWE-1302: Missing Source Identifier in Entity Transactions on a System-On-Chip (SOC)
Missing Source Identifier in Entity Transactions on a System-On-Chip (SOC) 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 DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart Bypass Protection Mechanism Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Developer Pattern
CWE-1302 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-1302, 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-1302: Missing Source Identifier in Entity Transactions on a System-On-Chip (SOC)
The product implements a security identifier mechanism to differentiate what actions are allowed or disallowed when a transaction originates from an entity. A transaction is sent without a security identifier.
In a System-On-Chip (SoC), various integrated circuits and hardware engines generate transactions such as to access (reads/writes) assets or perform certain actions (e.g., reset, fetch, compute). A typical transaction is comprised of source identity (to identify the originator of the transaction) and a destination identity (to route the transaction to the respective entity) in addition to much more information in the message. Sometimes the transactions are qualified with a Security Identifier. This Security Identifier helps the destination agent decide on the set of allowed or disallowed actions. A weakness that can exist in such transaction schemes is that the source agent does not consistently include the necessary Security Identifier with the transaction. If the Security Identifier is missing, the destination agent might drop the message (resulting in an inadvertent Denial-of-Service (DoS)) or take inappropriate action by default in its attempt to execute the transaction, resulting in privilege escalation or provision of unintended access.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- Consider a system with a register for storing AES key for encryption or decryption. The key is of 128 bits implemented as a set of four 32-bit registers. The key registers are assets, and the register AES_KEY_ACCESS_POLICY is defined to provide the necessary access controls. The access-policy register defines which agents with a security identifier in the transaction can access the AES-key registers. Each bit in this 32-bit register defines a security identifier. There could be a maximum of 32 security identifiers that are allowed accesses to the AES-key registers. The number of the bit when set (i.e., "1") allows for a respective action from an agent whose identity matches the number of the bit; if set to "0" (i.e., Clear), it disallows the respective action to that corresponding agent. The originator sends a transaction with no security identifier, i.e., meaning the value is "0" or NULL. The AES-Key-access register does not allow the necessary action and drops the transaction because the originator failed to include the required security identifier. The originator should send a transaction with Security Identifier "2" which will allow access to the AES-Key-access register and allow encryption and decryption operations.
Remediation
- Architecture and Design: Transaction details must be reviewed for design inconsistency and common weaknesses.
- Implementation: Security identifier definition and programming flow must be tested in pre-silicon and post-silicon testing.
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.