1871
Technology : Processor Hardware (Prevalence = Undetermined)
Likelihood Of Exploit
Low
Common Consequences
Scope Impact Likelihood
Integrity Bypass Protection Mechanism
A successful exploitation of this weakness will change the
order of an application's execution and will likely be used
to bypass specific protection mechanisms. This bypass
can be exploited further to potentially read data that should
otherwise be unaccessible.
High
Detection Methods
White Box
In theory this weakness can be detected through the use of white box testing techniques where
specifically crafted test cases are used in conjunction with debuggers to verify the order of
statements being executed.
Effectiveness = Opportunistic
Although the mentioned detection method is theoretically possible, the use of speculative
execution is a preferred way of increasing processor performance. The reality is that a large
number of statements are executed out of order, and determining if any of them break an access
control property would be extremely opportunistic.
Observed Examples
Reference Description
CVE-2017-5715 Intel, ARM, and AMD processor optimizations related to speculative execution
and branch prediction cause access control checks to be bypassed when
placing data into the cache. Often known as "Spectre".
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-5715
CVE-2017-5753 Intel, ARM, and AMD processor optimizations related to speculative execution
and branch prediction cause access control checks to be bypassed when
placing data into the cache. Often known as "Spectre".
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-5753
CVE-2017-5754 Intel processor optimizations related to speculative execution cause access
control checks to be bypassed when placing data into the cache. Often known
as "Meltdown".
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-5754
MemberOf Relationships
This MemberOf relationships table shows additional CWE Catgeories and Views that reference this
weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits
within the context of external information sources.
Nature Type ID Name Page
MemberOf 1398 Comprehensive Categorization: Component Interaction 1400 2524
Notes
Maintenance
As of CWE 4.9, members of the CWE Hardware SIG are closely analyzing this entry and others
to improve CWE's coverage of transient execution weaknesses, which include issues related to
Spectre, Meltdown, and other attacks. Additional investigation may include other weaknesses
related to microarchitectural state. As a result, this entry might change significantly in CWE 4.10.
CWE Version 4.14
CWE-1038: Insecure Automated Optimizations
CWE-1038: Insecure Automated Optimizations