CWE-1357: Reliance on Insufficiently Trustworthy Component

How it's found

Reliance on Insufficiently Trustworthy Component describes a general pattern rather than a single fixed bug. Testers use a mix of static analysis and manual code review to find where a target's code matches this pattern, then confirm exploitability by hand.

Many modern hardware and software products are built by combining multiple smaller components together into one larger entity, often during the design or architecture phase. For example, a hardware component might be built by a separate supplier, or the product might use an open-source software library from a third party. Regardless of the source, each component should be sufficiently trusted to ensure correct, secure operation of the product. If a component is not trustworthy, it can produce significant risks for the overall product, such as vulnerabilities that cannot be patched fast enough (if at all); hidden functionality such as malware; inability to update or replace the component if needed for security purposes; hardware components built from parts that do not meet specifications in ways that can lead to weaknesses; etc. Note that a component might not be trustworthy even if it is owned by the product vendor, such as a software component whose source code is lost and was built by developers who left the company, or a component that was developed by a separate company that was acquired and brought into the product's own company. Note that there can be disagreement as to whether a component is sufficiently trustworthy, since trust is ultimately subjective. Different stakeholders (e.g., customers, vendors, governments) have various threat models and ways to assess trust, and design/architecture choices might make tradeoffs between security, reliability, safety, privacy, cost, and other characteristics.

Vulnerable vs. safe

The refrigerator has no means of patching and is hacked, becoming a spewer of email spam.

The device automatically patches itself and provides considerable more protection against being hacked.

Consequences

• Reduce Maintainability

Mitigations

• Requirements/Architecture and Design/Implementation: For each component, ensure that its supply chain is well-controlled with sub-tier suppliers using best practices. For third-party software components such as libraries, ensure that they are developed and actively maintained by reputable vendors.
• Architecture and Design/Implementation/Integration/Manufacturing: 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."
• Operation/Patching and Maintenance: Continue to monitor changes in each of the product's components, especially when the changes indicate new vulnerabilities, end-of-life (EOL) plans, supplier practices that affect trustworthiness, etc.

Where this fits in a TurboPentest engagement

This weakness is not covered by the automated black-box pentest. IntegSec pentesters cover it in a manual engagement.

Frequently asked questions

Related CWEs

• Pillar weakness
  CWE-710: Improper Adherence to Coding Standards