Weaknesses in the 2023 CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses

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


Objective

Views in the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) represent one perspective with which to consider a set of weaknesses.

CWE entries in this view are listed in the 2023 CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses.

Target Audience

Educators

Educators can use this view to focus curriculum and teachings on the most dangerous weaknesses.

Product Customers

Customers can use the weaknesses in this view in order to formulate independent evidence of a claim by a product vendor to have eliminated / mitigated the most dangerous weaknesses.

Software Developers

By following the CWE Top 25, developers are able to significantly reduce the number of weaknesses that occur in their software.

Weaknesses

Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')

The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a ...

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

The web application does not, or can not, sufficiently verify whether a well-formed, valid, consistent request was intentionally provided by the user who submitted the...

Deserialization of Untrusted Data

The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid.

Improper Authentication

When an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralize...

Improper Input Validation

The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process th...

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but ...

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.

Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection')

The product constructs all or part of a command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes spe...

Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')

The product constructs all or part of an OS command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes...

Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')

The product constructs all or part of an SQL command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralize...

Improper Privilege Management

The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer.

Incorrect Authorization

The product performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action, but it does not correctly perform the check. This allows ...

Incorrect Default Permissions

During installation, installed file permissions are set to allow anyone to modify those files.

Integer Overflow or Wraparound

The product performs a calculation that can produce an integer overflow or wraparound, when the logic assumes that the resulting value will always be larger than the o...

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.

Missing Authorization

The product does not perform an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.

NULL Pointer Dereference

A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.

Out-of-bounds Read

The product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.

Out-of-bounds Write

The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.

Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)

The web server receives a URL or similar request from an upstream component and retrieves the contents of this URL, but it does not sufficiently ensure that the reques...

Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type

The product allows the attacker to upload or transfer files of dangerous types that can be automatically processed within the product's environment.

Use After Free

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Use of Hard-coded Credentials

The product contains hard-coded credentials, such as a password or cryptographic key, which it uses for its own inbound authentication, outbound communication to exter...

See Also

  1. 2023 CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses

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