CAPEC-519: Documentation Alteration to Cause Errors in System Design
Attack Pattern ID: 519
Abstraction: Detailed
Presentation Filter:
Description
An attacker with access to a manufacturer's documentation containing requirements allocation and software design processes maliciously alters the documentation in order to cause errors in system design. This allows the attacker to take advantage of a weakness in a deployed system of the manufacturer for malicious purposes.
Likelihood Of Attack
Low
Typical Severity
High
Relationships
This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern. These relationships are defined as ChildOf and ParentOf, and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as CanFollow, PeerOf, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar attack patterns that the user may want to explore.
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Standard Attack Pattern - A standard level attack pattern in CAPEC is focused on a specific methodology or technique used in an attack. It is often seen as a singular piece of a fully executed attack. A standard attack pattern is meant to provide sufficient details to understand the specific technique and how it attempts to accomplish a desired goal. A standard level attack pattern is a specific type of a more abstract meta level attack pattern.
Advanced knowledge of software capabilities of a manufacturer's product.
Access to the manufacturer's documentation.
Skills Required
[Level: High]
Ability to read, interpret, and subsequently alter manufacturer's documentation to cause errors in system design.
[Level: High]
Ability to stealthly gain access via remote compromise or physical access to the manufacturer's documentation.
Mitigations
Digitize documents and cryptographically sign them to verify authenticity.
Password protect documents and make them read-only for unauthorized users.
Avoid emailing important documents and configurations.
Ensure deleted files are actually deleted.
Maintain multiple instances of the document across different privileged users for recovery and verification.
Example Instances
During operation, a firewall will restart various subsystems to reload and implement new rules as added by the user. An attacker alters the software design dependencies in the manufacturer's documentation so that under certain predictable conditions the reload will fail to load in rules resulting in a "fail open" state. Once deployed at a victim site, this will allow the attacker to bypass the victim's firewall.
Description
This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern. These relationships are defined as ChildOf and ParentOf, and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as CanFollow, PeerOf, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar attack patterns that the user may want to explore.
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