The product allows address regions to overlap, which can result in the bypassing of intended memory protection.
Isolated memory regions and access control (read/write) policies are used by hardware to protect privileged software. Software components are often allowed to change or remap memory region definitions in order to enable flexible and dynamically changeable memory management by system software.
If a software component running at lower privilege can program a memory address region to overlap with other memory regions used by software running at higher privilege, privilege escalation may be available to attackers. The memory protection unit (MPU) logic can incorrectly handle such an address overlap and allow the lower-privilege software to read or write into the protected memory region, resulting in privilege escalation attack. An address overlap weakness can also be used to launch a denial of service attack on the higher-privilege software memory regions.
Ensure that memory regions are isolated as intended and that access control (read/write) policies are used by hardware to protect privileged software.
For all of the programmable memory protection regions, the memory protection unit (MPU) design can define a priority scheme.
For example: if three memory regions can be programmed (Region_0, Region_1, and Region_2), the design can enforce a priority scheme, such that, if a system address is within multiple regions, then the region with the lowest ID takes priority and the access-control policy of that region will be applied. In some MPU designs, the priority scheme can also be programmed by tr...
Create a high privilege memory block of any arbitrary size. Attempt to create a lower privilege memory block with an overlap of the high privilege memory block. If the creation attempt works, fix the hardware. Repeat the test.