Category: Cryptographic Issues
Draft
Summary
Weaknesses in this category are related to the design and implementation of data confidentiality and integrity. Frequently these deal with the use of encoding techniques, encryption libraries, and hashing algorithms. The weaknesses in this category could lead to a degradation of the quality data if they are not addressed.
Membership
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CWE-1204 | Generation of Weak Initialization Vector (IV) | The product uses a cryptographic primitive that uses an Initialization Vector (IV), but the product does not generate IVs that are sufficiently unpredictable or unique according to the expected cryptographic requirements for that primitive. |
| CWE-1240 | Use of a Cryptographic Primitive with a Risky Implementation | To fulfill the need for a cryptographic primitive, the product implements a cryptographic algorithm using a non-standard, unproven, or disallowed/non-compliant cryptographic implementation. |
| CWE-261 | Weak Encoding for Password | Obscuring a password with a trivial encoding does not protect the password. |
| CWE-324 | Use of a Key Past its Expiration Date | The product uses a cryptographic key or password past its expiration date, which diminishes its safety significantly by increasing the timing window for cracking attacks against that key. |
| CWE-325 | Missing Cryptographic Step | The product does not implement a required step in a cryptographic algorithm, resulting in weaker encryption than advertised by the algorithm. |
| CWE-328 | Use of Weak Hash | The product uses an algorithm that produces a digest (output value) that does not meet security expectations for a hash function that allows an adversary to reasonably determine the original input (preimage attack), find another input that can produce the same hash (2nd preimage attack), or find multiple inputs that evaluate to the same hash (birthday attack). |
| CWE-331 | Insufficient Entropy | The product uses an algorithm or scheme that produces insufficient entropy, leaving patterns or clusters of values that are more likely to occur than others. |
| CWE-334 | Small Space of Random Values | The number of possible random values is smaller than needed by the product, making it more susceptible to brute force attacks. |
| CWE-335 | Incorrect Usage of Seeds in Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) | The product uses a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) but does not correctly manage seeds. |
| CWE-338 | Use of Cryptographically Weak Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) | The product uses a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) in a security context, but the PRNG's algorithm is not cryptographically strong. |
| CWE-347 | Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature | The product does not verify, or incorrectly verifies, the cryptographic signature for data. |
| CWE-916 | Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort | The product generates a hash for a password, but it uses a scheme that does not provide a sufficient level of computational effort that would make password cracking attacks infeasible or expensive. |
| CWE-699 | 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 lifecycle including both architecture and implementation. Accordingly, this view can align closely with the perspectives of architects, developers, educators, and assessment vendors. It provides a variety of categories that are intended to simplify navigation, browsing, and mapping. |
Vulnerability Mapping Notes
Usage: Prohibited
Reasons: Category
Rationale:
This entry is a Category. Using categories for mapping has been discouraged since 2019. Categories are informal organizational groupings of weaknesses that can help CWE users with data aggregation, navigation, and browsing. However, they are not weaknesses in themselves [REF-1287]. This CWE ID may have become widely-used because of NIST's usage in NVD from 2008 to 2016 (see CWE-635 view, updated to the CWE-1003 view in 2016).
Comment:
Some weakness-oriented alternatives might be found as descendants under Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm (CWE-327)