CWE-1338: Improper Protections Against Hardware Overheating

CWE-1338: Improper Protections Against Hardware Overheating is a Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) entry maintained by MITRE. A hardware device is missing or has inadequate protection features to prevent overheating. Hardware, electrical circuits, and semiconductor silicon have thermal side effects, such that some of the energy consumed by the device gets dissipated as heat and increases the temperature of the device. For example, in semiconductors, higher-operating frequency of silicon results in higher power dissipation and heat. The leakage current in CMOS circuits increases with temperature, and this creates positive feedback that can result in thermal runaway and damage the device permanently. Any device lacking protections such as thermal sensors, adequate platform cooling, or thermal insulation is susceptible to attacks by malicious software that might deliberately operate the device in modes that result in overheating. This can be used as an effective denial of service (DoS) or permanent denial of service (PDoS) attack. Depending on the type of hardware device and its expected usage, such thermal overheating can also cause safety hazards and reliability issues. Note that battery failures can also cause device overheating but the mitigations and examples included in this submission cannot reliably protect against a battery failure. There can be similar weaknesses with lack of protection from attacks based on overvoltage or overcurrent conditions. However, thermal heat is generated by hardware operation and the device should implement protection from overheating.

If exploited, CWE-1338 (Improper Protections Against Hardware Overheating) it can compromise Availability, leading to outcomes such as DoS: Resource Consumption (Other).

Recommended mitigations for CWE-1338 include: Temperature maximum and minimum limits should be enforced using thermal sensors both in silicon and at the platform level. The platform should support cooling solutions such as fans that can be modulated based on device-operation needs to maintain a stable temperature.

CWE-1338 can be detected using Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation and Architecture or Design Review. Combining automated tooling with manual review typically yields the best coverage.

CWE-1338 commonly affects Not Language-Specific. Note that weaknesses are often language-agnostic patterns, so secure coding practices apply broadly.

A CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) like CWE-1338 describes a category of software weakness — the underlying flaw type. A CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) identifies a specific, real-world vulnerability in a particular product. In short, a CWE is the kind of mistake, and a CVE is an instance of that mistake being found in software.