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Capec-622 Detail

Electromagnetic Side-Channel Attack

Detailed Software Physical Security Hardware Typical Severity: Low

Parents: 189

Threats: T60

Description

In this attack scenario, the attacker passively monitors electromagnetic emanations that are produced by the targeted electronic device as an unintentional side-effect of its processing. From these emanations, the attacker derives information about the data that is being processed (e.g. the attacker can recover cryptographic keys by monitoring emanations associated with cryptographic processing). This style of attack requires proximal access to the device, however attacks have been demonstrated at public conferences that work at distances of up to 10-15 feet. There have not been any significant studies to determine the maximum practical distance for such attacks. Since the attack is passive, it is nearly impossible to detect and the targeted device will continue to operate as normal after a successful attack.

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External ID Source Link Description
CAPEC-622 capec https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/622.html
CWE-201 cwe http://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/201.html

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  1. Proximal access to the device.

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Medium
Sophisticated attack, but detailed techniques published in the open literature.
Confidentiality
Read Data (Derive sensitive information about encrypted data. For mobile devices, depending on which keys are compromised, the attacker may be able to decrypt VOIP communications, impersonate the targeted caller, or access the enterprise VPN server.)

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