Tag Archives: CVE-2020-9054

CWE

CWE-1329 – Reliance on Component That is Not Updateable

Read Time:1 Minute, 27 Second

Description

The product contains a component that cannot be updated or patched in order to remove vulnerabilities or significant bugs.

Modes of Introduction:

– Requirements

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-1357
CWE-664

 

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity, Access Control, Authentication, Authorization, Other: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Bypass Protection Mechanism, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, Quality Degradation, Reduce Maintainability

If an attacker can identify an exploitable vulnerability in one product that has no means of patching, the attack may be used against all affected versions of that product.

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Requirements

Description: 

Specify requirements that each component should be updateable, including ROM, firmware, etc.

Phase: Architecture and Design

Description: 

Design the product to allow for updating of its components. Include the external infrastructure that might be necessary to support updates, such as distribution servers.

Phase: Architecture and Design, Implementation

Effectiveness: Moderate

Description: 

With hardware, support patches that can be programmed in-field or during manufacturing through hardware fuses. This feature can be used for limited patching of devices after shipping, or for the next batch of silicon devices manufactured, without changing the full device ROM.

Some parts of the hardware initialization or signature verification done to authenticate patches will always be “not patchable.” Hardware-fuse-based patches will also have limitations in terms of size and the number of patches that can be supported.

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Implement the necessary functionality to allow each component to be updated.

CVE References

  • CVE-2020-9054
    • Chain: network-attached storage (NAS) device has a critical OS command injection (CWE-78) vulnerability that is actively exploited to place IoT devices into a botnet, but some products are “end-of-support” and cannot be patched (CWE-1277). [REF-1097]
CWE

CWE-1357 – Reliance on Uncontrolled Component

Read Time:58 Second

Description

The product’s design or architecture is built from multiple separate components, but one or more components are not under complete control of the developer, such as a third-party software library or a physical component that is built by an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

Modes of Introduction:

– Requirements

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-710

 

Consequences

Other: Reduce Maintainability

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Architecture and Design, Implementation, Integration, Manufacturing

Description: 

Maintain a Bill of Materials for all components and sub-components of the product. For software, maintain a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). According to [REF-1247], “An SBOM is a formal, machine-readable inventory of software components and dependencies, information about those components, and their hierarchical relationships.”

Phase: Operation, Patching and Maintenance

Description: 

Continue to monitor changes in each of the product’s components, especially when the changes indicate new vulnerabilities, end-of-life (EOL) plans, etc.

CVE References

  • CVE-2020-9054
    • Chain: network-attached storage (NAS) device has a critical OS command injection (CWE-78) vulnerability that is actively exploited to place IoT devices into a botnet, but some products are “end-of-support” and cannot be patched (CWE-1277). [REF-1097]
CWE

CWE-1277 – Firmware Not Updateable

Read Time:1 Minute, 35 Second

Description

The product does not provide its
users with the ability to update or patch its
firmware to address any vulnerabilities or
weaknesses that may be present.

Without the ability to
patch or update firmware, consumers will be
left vulnerable to exploitation of any known
vulnerabilities, or any vulnerabilities that
are discovered in the future. This can expose
consumers to permanent risk throughout the
entire lifetime of the device, which could be
years or decades. Some external protective
measures and mitigations might be employed to
aid in preventing or reducing the risk of
malicious attack, but the root weakness cannot
be corrected.

Modes of Introduction:

– Requirements

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-1329

 

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity, Access Control, Authentication, Authorization: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Bypass Protection Mechanism, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

If an attacker can identify an exploitable vulnerability in one device that has no means of patching, the attack may be used against an entire class of devices.

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Requirements

Description: 

Specify requirements to include the ability to update the firmware. Include integrity checks and authentication to ensure that untrusted firmware cannot be installed.

Phase: Architecture and Design

Description: 

Design the device to allow for updating the firmware. Ensure that the design specifies how to distribute the updates and ensure their integrity and authentication.

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Implement the necessary functionality to allow the firmware to be updated.

CVE References

  • CVE-2020-9054
    • Chain: network-attached storage (NAS) device has a critical OS command injection (CWE-78) vulnerability that is actively exploited to place IoT devices into a botnet, but some products are “end-of-support” and cannot be patched (CWE-1277). [REF-1097]
  • [REF-1095]
    • A hardware “smart lock” has weak key generation that allows attackers to steal the key by BLE sniffing, but the device’s firmware cannot be upgraded and hence remains vulnerable [REF-1095].