CWE-1298βHardware Logic Contains Race Conditions
Metadata
Weakness Name
Hardware Logic Contains Race Conditions
Description
A race condition in the hardware logic results in undermining security guarantees of the system.
A race condition in logic circuits typically occurs when a logic gate gets inputs from signals that have traversed different paths while originating from the same source. Such inputs to the gate can change at slightly different times in response to a change in the source signal. This results in a timing error or a glitch (temporary or permanent) that causes the output to change to an unwanted state before settling back to the desired state. If such timing errors occur in access control logic or finite state machines that are implemented in security sensitive flows, an attacker might exploit them to circumvent existing protections.