Interpretation Conflict
Product A handles inputs or steps differently than Product B, which causes A to perform incorrect actions based on its perception of B's state.
Description
This is generally found in proxies, firewalls, anti-virus software, and other intermediary devices that monitor, allow, deny, or modify traffic based on how the client or server is expected to behave.
Demonstrations
The following examples help to illustrate the nature of this weakness and describe methods or techniques which can be used to mitigate the risk.
Note that the examples here are by no means exhaustive and any given weakness may have many subtle varieties, each of which may require different detection methods or runtime controls.
Example One
The paper "Insertion, Evasion, and Denial of Service: Eluding Network Intrusion Detection" [REF-428] shows that OSes varied widely in how they manage unusual packets, which made it difficult or impossible for intrusion detection systems to properly detect certain attacker manipulations that took advantage of these OS differences.
Example Two
Null characters have different interpretations in Perl and C, which have security consequences when Perl invokes C functions. Similar problems have been reported in ASP [REF-429] and PHP.
See Also
Weaknesses in this category are related to component interaction.
This category identifies Software Fault Patterns (SFPs) within the Protocol Error cluster.
This view (slice) covers all the elements in CWE.
CWE entries in this view (graph) may be used to categorize potential weaknesses within sources that handle public, third-party vulnerability information, such as the N...
This view (slice) lists weaknesses that can be introduced during implementation.
Common Weakness Enumeration content on this website is copyright of The MITRE Corporation unless otherwise specified. Use of the Common Weakness Enumeration and the associated references on this website are subject to the Terms of Use as specified by The MITRE Corporation.