CAPEC-516
Hardware Component Substitution During Baselining
An adversary with access to system components during allocated baseline development can substitute a maliciously altered hardware component for a baseline component during the product development and research phases. This can lead to adjustments and calibrations being made in the product so that when the final product, now containing the modified component, is deployed it will not perform as designed and be advantageous to the adversary.
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Explain the attack pattern CAPEC-516: Hardware Component Substitution During Baselining: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/516.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/516?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.Opens a third-party assistant; its answer is its own, not cve.bz's. The prompt holds only this attack pattern's id and public links.
Prerequisites
The adversary will need either physical access or be able to supply malicious hardware components to the product development facility.
Skills required
- Medium skill
Intelligence data on victim's purchasing habits.
- High skill
Resources to maliciously construct/alter hardware components used for testing by the supplier.
- High skill
Resources to physically infiltrate supplier.
Mitigations
Hardware attacks are often difficult to detect, as inserted components can be difficult to identify or remain dormant for an extended period of time.
Acquire hardware and hardware components from trusted vendors. Additionally, determine where vendors purchase components or if any components are created/acquired via subcontractors to determine where supply chain risks may exist.
Related attack patterns
- Part of
- CAPEC-444 Development Alteration
Examples
An adversary supplies the product development facility of a network security device with a hardware component…
An adversary supplies the product development facility of a network security device with a hardware component that is used to simulate large volumes of network traffic. The device claims in logs, stats, and via the display panel to be pumping out very large quantities of network traffic, when it is in fact putting out very low volumes. The developed product is adjusted and configured to handle what it believes to be a heavy network load, but when deployed at the victim site the large volumes of network traffic are dropped instead of being processed by the network security device. This allows the adversary an advantage when attacking the victim in that the adversary's presence may not be detected by the device.
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