Tag Archives: Cryptographic Operations are run Before Supporting Units are Ready

CWE-1279 – Cryptographic Operations are run Before Supporting Units are Ready

Read Time:49 Second

Description

Performing cryptographic operations without ensuring that the supporting inputs are ready to supply valid data may compromise the cryptographic result.

Many cryptographic hardware units depend upon other hardware units to supply information to them to produce a securely encrypted result. For example, a cryptographic unit that depends on an external random-number-generator (RNG) unit for entropy must wait until the RNG unit is producing random numbers. If a cryptographic unit retrieves a private encryption key from a fuse unit, the fuse unit must be up and running before a key may be supplied.

Modes of Introduction:

– Architecture and Design

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-665

 

Consequences

Access Control, Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Accountability, Authentication, Authorization, Non-Repudiation: Varies by Context

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Architecture and Design

Description: 

Best practices should be used to design cryptographic systems.

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Continuously ensuring that cryptographic inputs are supplying valid information is necessary to ensure that the encrypted output is secure.

CVE References