The software does not return custom error pages to the user, possibly exposing sensitive information.
Modes of Introduction:
Likelihood of Exploit:
Confidentiality: Read Application Data
Attackers can leverage the additional information provided by a default error page to mount attacks targeted on the framework, database, or other resources used by the application.
A protocol or its implementation supports interaction between multiple actors and allows those actors to negotiate which algorithm should be used as a protection mechanism such as encryption or authentication, but it does not select the strongest algorithm that is available to both parties.
When a security mechanism can be forced to downgrade to use a less secure algorithm, this can make it easier for attackers to compromise the software by exploiting weaker algorithm. The victim might not be aware that the less secure algorithm is being used. For example, if an attacker can force a communications channel to use cleartext instead of strongly-encrypted data, then the attacker could read the channel by sniffing, instead of going through extra effort of trying to decrypt the data using brute force techniques.
Modes of Introduction:
– Architecture and Design
Likelihood of Exploit:
Access Control: Bypass Protection Mechanism
The software uses an API function, data structure, or other entity in a way that relies on properties that are not always guaranteed to hold for that entity.
This can lead to resultant weaknesses when the required properties change, such as when the software is ported to a different platform or if an interaction error (CWE-435) occurs.
Modes of Introduction:
Likelihood of Exploit:
Other: Other
The software uses a one-way cryptographic hash against an input that should not be reversible, such as a password, but the software does not also use a salt as part of the input.
In cryptography, salt refers to some random addition of data to an input before hashing to make dictionary attacks more difficult.
Modes of Introduction:
– Implementation
Likelihood of Exploit:
Access Control: Bypass Protection Mechanism, Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
If an attacker can gain access to the hashes, then the lack of a salt makes it easier to conduct brute force attacks using techniques such as rainbow tables.
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness: High
Description:
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness: Limited
Description:
If a technique that requires extra computational effort can not be implemented, then for each password that is processed, generate a new random salt using a strong random number generator with unpredictable seeds. Add the salt to the plaintext password before hashing it. When storing the hash, also store the salt. Do not use the same salt for every password.
Be aware that salts will not reduce the workload of a targeted attack against an individual hash (such as the password for a critical person), and in general they are less effective than other hashing techniques such as increasing the computation time or memory overhead. Without a built-in workload, modern attacks can compute large numbers of hashes, or even exhaust the entire space of all possible passwords, within a very short amount of time, using massively-parallel computing and GPU, ASIC, or FPGA hardware.
Phase: Implementation, Architecture and Design
Effectiveness:
Description:
When using industry-approved techniques, use them correctly. Don’t cut corners by skipping resource-intensive steps (CWE-325). These steps are often essential for preventing common attacks.
The software properly neutralizes certain special elements, but it improperly neutralizes equivalent special elements.
The software may have a fixed list of special characters it believes is complete. However, there may be alternate encodings, or representations that also have the same meaning. For example, the software may filter out a leading slash (/) to prevent absolute path names, but does not account for a tilde (~) followed by a user name, which on some *nix systems could be expanded to an absolute pathname. Alternately, the software might filter a dangerous “-e” command-line switch when calling an external program, but it might not account for “–exec” or other switches that have the same semantics.
Modes of Introduction:
– Architecture and Design
Likelihood of Exploit: High
Other: Other
Phase: Requirements
Effectiveness:
Description:
Programming languages and supporting technologies might be chosen which are not subject to these issues.
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
Utilize an appropriate mix of allowlist and denylist parsing to filter equivalent special element syntax from all input.
The software uses a one-way cryptographic hash against an input that should not be reversible, such as a password, but the software uses a predictable salt as part of the input.
In cryptography, salt refers to some random addition of data to an input before hashing to make dictionary attacks more difficult.
Modes of Introduction:
– Implementation
Likelihood of Exploit:
Access Control: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness: High
Description:
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness: Limited
Description:
If a technique that requires extra computational effort can not be implemented, then for each password that is processed, generate a new random salt using a strong random number generator with unpredictable seeds. Add the salt to the plaintext password before hashing it. When storing the hash, also store the salt. Do not use the same salt for every password.
Be aware that salts will not reduce the workload of a targeted attack against an individual hash (such as the password for a critical person), and in general they are less effective than other hashing techniques such as increasing the computation time or memory overhead. Without a built-in workload, modern attacks can compute large numbers of hashes, or even exhaust the entire space of all possible passwords, within a very short amount of time, using massively-parallel computing and GPU, ASIC, or FPGA hardware.
The application calls free() on a pointer to a memory resource that was allocated on the heap, but the pointer is not at the start of the buffer.
Modes of Introduction:
– Implementation
Likelihood of Exploit:
Integrity, Availability, Confidentiality: Modify Memory, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
When utilizing pointer arithmetic to traverse a buffer, use a separate variable to track progress through memory and preserve the originally allocated address for later freeing.
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
When programming in C++, consider using smart pointers provided by the boost library to help correctly and consistently manage memory.
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness:
Description:
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness:
Description:
Use a language that provides abstractions for memory allocation and deallocation.
Phase: Testing
Effectiveness:
Description:
Use a tool that dynamically detects memory management problems, such as valgrind.
The application attempts to return a memory resource to the system, but it calls a release function that is not compatible with the function that was originally used to allocate that resource.
Modes of Introduction:
– Implementation
Likelihood of Exploit: Low
Integrity, Availability, Confidentiality: Modify Memory, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
Only call matching memory management functions. Do not mix and match routines. For example, when you allocate a buffer with malloc(), dispose of the original pointer with free().
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness:
Description:
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness:
Description:
Use a language that provides abstractions for memory allocation and deallocation.
Phase: Testing
Effectiveness:
Description:
Use a tool that dynamically detects memory management problems, such as valgrind.
The application attempts to return a memory resource to the system, but calls the wrong release function or calls the appropriate release function incorrectly.
Modes of Introduction:
– Implementation
Likelihood of Exploit:
Integrity, Availability, Confidentiality: Modify Memory, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
This weakness may result in the corruption of memory, and perhaps instructions, possibly leading to a crash. If the corrupted memory can be effectively controlled, it may be possible to execute arbitrary code.
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
Only call matching memory management functions. Do not mix and match routines. For example, when you allocate a buffer with malloc(), dispose of the original pointer with free().
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
When programming in C++, consider using smart pointers provided by the boost library to help correctly and consistently manage memory.
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness:
Description:
Phase: Architecture and Design
Effectiveness:
Description:
Use a language that provides abstractions for memory allocation and deallocation.
Phase: Testing
Effectiveness:
Description:
Use a tool that dynamically detects memory management problems, such as valgrind.
The software locks a critical resource more times than intended, leading to an unexpected state in the system.
When software is operating in a concurrent environment and repeatedly locks a critical resource, the consequences will vary based on the type of lock, the lock’s implementation, and the resource being protected. In some situations such as with semaphores, the resources are pooled and extra locking calls will reduce the size of the total available pool, possibly leading to degraded performance or a denial of service. If this can be triggered by an attacker, it will be similar to an unrestricted lock (CWE-412). In the context of a binary lock, it is likely that any duplicate locking attempts will never succeed since the lock is already held and progress may not be possible.
Modes of Introduction:
– Architecture and Design
Likelihood of Exploit:
CWE-667
CWE-675
CWE-662
CWE-662
Availability, Integrity: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, Unexpected State
Phase: Implementation
Effectiveness:
Description:
When locking and unlocking a resource, try to be sure that all control paths through the code in which the resource is locked one or more times correspond to exactly as many unlocks. If the software acquires a lock and then determines it is not able to perform its intended behavior, be sure to release the lock(s) before waiting for conditions to improve. Reacquire the lock(s) before trying again.