Top 10 2014-I10 Poor Physical Security

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Consider anyone who has physical access to the device.

Attacker uses vectors such as USB ports, SD cards or other storage means to access the Operating System and potentially any data stored on the device.

Physical security weaknesses are present when an attacker can disassemble a device to easily access the storage medium and any data stored on that medium. Weaknesses are also present when USB ports or other external ports can be used to access the device using features intended for configuration or maintenance.

Insufficient physical security could lead to compromise of the device itself and any data stored on that device.

Data could be stolen or modified and the device taken control of for purposes other than what was originally intended. Could your users be harmed? Could your brand be harmed?

Physical security of a device is simple to assess by determining how easily a device can be disassembled and data storage mediums accessed or removed. The use of external ports such as USB can also be assessed to determine if data can be accessed on the device without disassembling the device. Access to data stored on the device via a USB port may not be trivial and require custom software.

Ensuring adequate physical security requires:
 * 1) Ensuring data storage medium can not be easily removed.
 * 2) Ensuring stored data is encrypted at rest.
 * 3) Ensuring USB ports or other external ports can not be used to maliciously access the device.
 * 4) Ensuring device can not be easily disassembled.
 * 5) Are external ports such as USB needed on the device?

Scenario #1: The device can be easily disassembled and storage medium is an unencrypted SD card.

SD card can be removed and inserted into a card reader to be modified or copied.

Scenario #2: USB ports are present on the device. Custom software could be written to take advantage of features such as updating via the USB port to modify the original device software.

In both cases, an attacker is able to access the original device software and make modifications or simply copy specific target data.