CWE-1338
Weakness AllowedImproper Protections Against Hardware Overheating
Abstraction: Base · Status: Draft
A hardware device is missing or has inadequate protection features to prevent overheating.
Hardware, electrical circuits, and semiconductor silicon have thermal side effects, such that some of the energy consumed by the device gets dissipated as heat and increases the temperature of the device. For example, in semiconductors, higher-operating frequency of silicon results in higher power dissipation and heat. The leakage current in CMOS circuits increases with temperature, and this creates positive feedback that can result in thermal runaway and damage the device permanently.
Any device lacking protections such as thermal sensors, adequate platform cooling, or thermal insulation is susceptible to attacks by malicious software that might deliberately operate the device in modes that result in overheating. This can be used as an effective denial of service (DoS) or permanent denial of service (PDoS) attack.
Depending on the type of hardware device and its expected usage, such thermal overheating can also cause safety hazards and reliability issues. Note that battery failures can also cause device overheating but the mitigations and examples included in this submission cannot reliably protect against a battery failure.
There can be similar weaknesses with lack of protection from attacks based on overvoltage or overcurrent conditions. However, thermal heat is generated by hardware operation and the device should implement protection from overheating.
Dimensions
- Behavior-Type: Protections
- Behavior-Property: Improper
- Technology: Hardware
- Other: Overheating
Mapping guidance
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.
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.
Relationships and members
Modes of introduction
Such issues could be introduced during hardware architecture, design or implementation.
Detection methods
Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation
Dynamic tests should be performed to stress-test temperature controls.
Effectiveness: High
Architecture or Design Review
Power management controls should be part of Architecture and Design reviews.
Effectiveness: High
Content history
updated Applicable_Platforms, Relationships
updated Applicable_Platforms
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
updated Applicable_Platforms, Related_Attack_Patterns
updated Relationships
updated Mapping_Notes
updated Weakness_Ordinalities
updated Dimensions, Relationships
0 vulnerabilities reference this CWE, most recent first.
No vulnerabilities reference this CWE.
Mitigation
Temperature maximum and minimum limits should be enforced using thermal sensors both in silicon and at the platform level.
Mitigation
The platform should support cooling solutions such as fans that can be modulated based on device-operation needs to maintain a stable temperature.
CAPEC-624: Hardware Fault Injection
The adversary uses disruptive signals or events, or alters the physical environment a device operates in, to cause faulty behavior in electronic devices. This can include electromagnetic pulses, laser pulses, clock glitches, ambient temperature extremes, and more. When performed in a controlled manner on devices performing cryptographic operations, this faulty behavior can be exploited to derive secret key information.
CAPEC-625: Mobile Device Fault Injection
Fault injection attacks against mobile devices use disruptive signals or events (e.g. electromagnetic pulses, laser pulses, clock glitches, etc.) to cause faulty behavior. When performed in a controlled manner on devices performing cryptographic operations, this faulty behavior can be exploited to derive secret key information. Although this attack usually requires physical control of the mobile device, it is non-destructive, and the device can be used after the attack without any indication that secret keys were compromised.