CWE-1357

Reliance on Insufficiently Trustworthy Component

Class

What it is

The product is built from multiple separate components, but it uses a component that is not sufficiently trusted to meet expectations for security, reliability, updateability, and maintainability.

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

Impact

Other

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.

Real-world CVE examples

CVE-2020-9054 — Chain: network-attached storage (NAS) device has a critical OS command injection (CWE-78) vulnerability that is actively exploited to place IoT devices into a b

Related weaknesses

CWE-710 (childof)

Test & detect

Browse all common weaknesses, check related exploited CVEs, or map to ATT&CK techniques.

Source: MITRE CWE. View on cwe.mitre.org →