Authentication Errors

A category in the Common Weakness Enumeration published by The MITRE Corporation.


Summary

Categories in the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) group entries based on some common characteristic or attribute.

Weaknesses in this category are related to authentication components of a system. Frequently these deal with the ability to verify that an entity is indeed who it claims to be. If not addressed when designing or implementing a software system, these weaknesses could lead to a degradation of the quality of the authentication capability.

Weaknesses

Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name

The product performs authentication based on the name of a resource being accessed, or the name of the actor performing the access, but it does not properly check all ...

Authentication Bypass by Capture-replay

A capture-replay flaw exists when the design of the product makes it possible for a malicious user to sniff network traffic and bypass authentication by replaying it t...

Authentication Bypass by Primary Weakness

The authentication algorithm is sound, but the implemented mechanism can be bypassed as the result of a separate weakness that is primary to the authentication error.

Authentication Bypass by Spoofing

This attack-focused weakness is caused by incorrectly implemented authentication schemes that are subject to spoofing attacks.

Guessable CAPTCHA

The product uses a CAPTCHA challenge, but the challenge can be guessed or automatically recognized by a non-human actor.

Improper Certificate Validation

The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate.

Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts

The product does not implement sufficient measures to prevent multiple failed authentication attempts within a short time frame, making it more susceptible to brute fo...

Incorrect Implementation of Authentication Algorithm

The requirements for the product dictate the use of an established authentication algorithm, but the implementation of the algorithm is incorrect.

Key Exchange without Entity Authentication

The product performs a key exchange with an actor without verifying the identity of that actor.

Missing Authentication for Critical Function

The product does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources.

Overly Restrictive Account Lockout Mechanism

The product contains an account lockout protection mechanism, but the mechanism is too restrictive and can be triggered too easily, which allows attackers to deny serv...

Reflection Attack in an Authentication Protocol

Simple authentication protocols are subject to reflection attacks if a malicious user can use the target machine to impersonate a trusted user.

Use of Client-Side Authentication

A client/server product performs authentication within client code but not in server code, allowing server-side authentication to be bypassed via a modified client tha...

Use of Password Hash Instead of Password for Authentication

The product records password hashes in a data store, receives a hash of a password from a client, and compares the supplied hash to the hash obtained from the data store.

Use of Password System for Primary Authentication

The use of password systems as the primary means of authentication may be subject to several flaws or shortcomings, each reducing the effectiveness of the mechanism.

Use of Single-factor Authentication

The use of single-factor authentication can lead to unnecessary risk of compromise when compared with the benefits of a dual-factor authentication scheme.

Concepts

Software Development

This view organizes weaknesses around concepts that are frequently used or encountered in software development. This includes all aspects of the software development l...


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