CWE-1329 Detail

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

If the component is discovered to contain a vulnerability or critical bug, but the issue cannot be fixed using an update or patch, then the product's owner will not be able to protect against the issue. The only option might be replacement of the product, which could be too financially or operationally expensive for the product owner. As a result, the inability to patch or update can leave the product open to attacker exploitation or critical operation failures. This weakness can be especially difficult to manage when using ROM, firmware, or similar components that traditionally have had limited or no update capabilities.

In industries such as healthcare, "legacy" devices can be operated for decades. As a US task force report [REF-1197] notes, "the inability to update or replace equipment has both large and small health care delivery organizations struggle with numerous unsupported legacy systems that cannot easily be replaced (hardware, software, and operating systems) with large numbers of vulnerabilities and few modern countermeasures."

While hardware can be prone to this weakness, software systems can also be affected, such as when a third-party driver or library is no longer actively maintained or supported but is still critical for the required functionality.

Modes Of Introduction

Requirements : Requirements development might not consider the importance of updates over the lifetime of the product or might intentionally exclude this capability due to concerns such as expense or speed to market.
Architecture and Design : Lack of planning during architecture development and design, or external pressures such as speed to market, could ignore the capability to update.
Architecture and Design : Designers might omit capabilities for updating a component due to time pressures to release the product or assumptions about the stability of the component.
Implementation : The weakness can appear through oversight during implementation.

Applicable Platforms

Language

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined)

Operating Systems

Class: Not OS-Specific (Undetermined)

Architectures

Class: Not Architecture-Specific (Undetermined)

Technologies

Class: Not Technology-Specific (Undetermined)
Class: ICS/OT (Undetermined)

Common Consequences

Observed Examples

Potential Mitigations

Phases : Requirements
Specify requirements that each component should be updateable, including ROM, firmware, etc.
Phases : Architecture and Design
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.
Phases : Architecture and Design // Implementation
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.
Phases : Implementation
Implement the necessary functionality to allow each component to be updated.

Detection Methods

Architecture or Design Review

Check the consumer or maintainer documentation, the architecture/design documentation, or the original requirements to ensure that the documentation includes details for how to update the firmware.
Effectiveness : Moderate

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Justification : This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.
Comment : Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

References

REF-1197

Report on Improving Cybersecurity in the Health Care Industry
Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force.
https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/planning/CyberTF/Documents/report2017.pdf

REF-1097

Zyxel Flaw Powers New Mirai IoT Botnet Strain
Brian Krebs.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/03/zxyel-flaw-powers-new-mirai-iot-botnet-strain/

REF-1387

dmi_jtag.sv line 324
https://github.com/HACK-EVENT/hackatdac21/blob/main/piton/design/chip/tile/ariane/src/riscv-dbg/src/dmi_jtag.sv#L324C9-L324C87

REF-1388

Fix for dmi_jtag.sv
https://github.com/HACK-EVENT/hackatdac21/commit/c94ce5f9487a41c77ede0bbc8daf4da66c39f42a

Submission

Modifications