Missing Security Identifier

The product implements a security identifier mechanism to differentiate what actions are allowed or disallowed when a transaction originates from an entity. A transaction is sent without a security identifier.

In a System-On-Chip (SoC), various integrated circuits and hardware engines generate transactions such as to access (reads/writes) assets or perform certain actions (e.g., reset, fetch, compute). A typical transaction is comprised of source identity (to identify the originator of the transaction) and a destination identity (to route the transaction to the respective entity) in addition to much more information in the message. Sometimes the transactions are qualified with a Security Identifier. This Security Identifier helps the destination agent decide on the set of allowed or disallowed actions.

A common weakness that can exist in such transaction schemes is that the source agent fails to include the necessary, security identifier with the transaction. Because of the missing security identifier, the destination agent might drop the message, thus resulting in Denial-of-Service (DoS), or get confused in its attempt to execute the given action, which confusion could result in privilege escalation or a gain of unintended access.