CAPEC-189: Black Box Reverse Engineering
An adversary discovers the structure, function, and composition of a type of computer software through black box analysis techniques. 'Black Box' methods involve interacting with the software indirectly, in the absence of direct access to the executable object. Such analysis typically involves interacting with the software at the boundaries of where the software interfaces with a larger execution environment, such as input-output vectors, libraries, or APIs. Black Box Reverse Engineering also refers to gathering physical side effects of a hardware device, such as electromagnetic radiation or sounds.
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Overview
CAPEC-189 (Black Box Reverse Engineering) is a standard-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.
What the attacker needs
Resources required
- Black box methods require (at minimum) the ability to interact with the functional boundaries where the software communicates with a larger processing environment, such as inter-process communication on a host operating system, or via networking protocols.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about CAPEC-189.
- What is CAPEC-189?
- An adversary discovers the structure, function, and composition of a type of computer software through black box analysis techniques. 'Black Box' methods involve interacting with the software indirectly, in the absence of direct access to the executable object. Such analysis typically involves interacting with the software at the boundaries of where the software interfaces with a larger execution environment, such as input-output vectors, libraries, or APIs. Black Box Reverse Engineering also refers to gathering physical side effects of a hardware device, such as electromagnetic radiation or sounds.
- What weaknesses does CAPEC-189 target?
- CAPEC-189 exploits 3 CWE weaknesses, including CWE-203 (Observable Discrepancy), CWE-1255 (Comparison Logic is Vulnerable to Power Side-Channel Attacks), CWE-1300 (Improper Protection of Physical Side Channels).
- How severe is CAPEC-189?
- MITRE rates CAPEC-189 as Low severity.
References
Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.
Defend against CAPEC-189
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