CWE - CWE Glossary

CWE Glossary

AITM

Activation Point

Actor

Adversary-in-the-Middle

AITM

Abbreviation for Adversary-in-the-Middle. Formerly MITM.

a vulnerability theory term for the location in code at an attacker's "payload" can be executed, i.e., when the attacker has caused the code to violate the intended security policy. For example, in SQL injection, the code reads an input from a parameter (interaction point), incorrectly checks the input for dangerous characters (crossover point), inserts the input into a dynamically generated query string, then sends the query string to the database server (trigger point), then the query is processed by the server (activation point). See the Vulnerability Theory paper for more details.

Actor

a vulnerability theory term that describes an entity that interacts with a product or with other entities, such as a User, Service, Monitor (e.g. IDS), Intermediary, and others.

Adversary-in-the-Middle

an adversary who is able to eavesdrop, intercept, and/or possibly modify the communications between two parties by having access to an intermediary system through which communication must flow between the two parties, e.g. an router in between a client and server. Formerly Man-in-the-Middle / MITM.

Allowlist

a list or group of characters, strings, patterns, or other elements that is used to identify whether certain data should be allowed or accepted; treated as safe; included; or processed without modification.

Attack Pattern

The common approach and attributes related to the exploitation of a weakness in a software, firmware, hardware, or service component.

Attacker

an actor who attempts to gain access to behaviors or resources that are outside of the product's intended control sphere for that actor.

Authentication

the process of verifying that an actor has a specific real-world identity, typically by checking for information that the product assumes can only be produced by that actor. This is different than authorization, because authentication focuses on verifying the identity of the actor, not what resources the actor can access.

Authorization

the process of determining whether an actor with a given identity is allowed to have access to a resource, then granting access to that resource, as defined by the implicit and explicit security policies for the system. This is different than authentication, because authorization focuses on whether a given actor can access a given resource, not in proving what the real-world identity of the actor is.

Base Weakness

a weakness that is described in an abstract fashion, but with sufficient details to infer specific methods for detection and prevention. More general than a Variant weakness, but more specific than a Class Weakness. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. For example the base weakness "Use of Externally-Controlled Format String" (CWE-134) describes an issue (inappropriate action) with a behavior (Use of) taken against a specific resource (Format String) with a given property (Externally Controlled). Another example is "Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory" (CWE-22) which describes an issue (Improper Limitation) with a behavior (control of a Pathname) taken against a resource (Directory) with a given property (Restricted).

Behavior

an action that the product takes, typically as implemented in code or as represented by an algorithm. Could also refer to actions by other actors that are not the system.

Business Logic

Use of this term is discouraged in CWE. This term is generally used to describe issues that require domain-specific knowledge or "business rules" to determine if they are weaknesses or vulnerabilities, instead of legitimate behavior. Such issues might not be easily detectable via automatic code analysis, because the associated operations do not produce clear errors or undefined behavior at the code level.

CRUD

acronym for "Create, Read, Update, Delete," a model for persistent storage of data that is similar to the resource model in vulnerability theory.

Callable

(adapted from CISQ) also known as "Callable Element": an abstract term for a function, method, procedure, etc. that can be explicitly invoked by its name.

Canonicalization

a behavior that converts or reduces an input/output to a single fixed form that cannot be converted or reduced any further. In cases in which the input/output is used as an identifier, canonicalization refers to the act of converting that identifier. For example, when the current working directory is "/users/cwe," the filename "../xyz" can be canonicalized to "/users/xyz."

Canonicalize

to perform Canonicalization.

Chain

a Compound Element that is a sequence of two or more separate weaknesses that can be closely linked together. One weakness, X, can directly create the conditions that are necessary to cause another weakness, Y, to enter a vulnerable condition. When this happens, CWE refers to X as "primary" to Y, and Y is "resultant" from X. For example, in the named chain CWE-691, an integer overflow (CWE-190) can lead to a buffer overflow (CWE-120) if an integer overflow occurs while calculating the amount of memory to allocate. In this case, the integer overflow would be primary to the buffer overflow. Chains can involve more than two weaknesses, and in some cases, they might have a tree-like structure.

Check

in the vulnerability theory model of error handling, to examine a resource, its properties, or the system state to determine if they align with the expectations of the product.

Class Weakness

a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. For example the class weakness "Uncontrolled Resource Consumption" (CWE-400) describes an issue (Uncontrolled) with a behavior (Consumption) associated with any type of resource. Another example is "Insecure Storage of Sensitive Information" (CWE-922) which describes an issue (Insecure) with a behavior (Storage) taken against a general type of resource (Sensitive Information).

Cleanse

Use of this term is discouraged in names and descriptions for CWE weaknesses, since it has too many different meanings in the industry and may cause mapping errors. It is not precise enough for CWE's purpose. This decision was made in CWE 1.9.

Cleansing

This term is discouraged for use in CWE.

Cleartext

Any information that is unencrypted, although it might be in an encoded form that is not easily human-readable, such as base64 encoding. Some people use the "plaintext" term to mean the same thing, but "plaintext" has a more precise meaning within cryptography.

Composite

a Compound Element that consists of two or more distinct weaknesses, in which all weaknesses must be present at the same time in order for a potential vulnerability to arise. Removing any of the weaknesses eliminates or sharply reduces the risk. One weakness, X, can be "broken down" into component weaknesses Y and Z. For example, Symlink Following (CWE-61) is only possible through a combination of several component weaknesses, including predictability (CWE-340), inadequate permissions (CWE-275), and race conditions (CWE-362). By eliminating any single component, a developer can prevent the composite from becoming exploitable. There can be cases in which one weakness might not be essential to a composite, but changes the nature of the composite when it becomes a vulnerability; for example, NUL byte interaction errors (CWE-626) can widen the scope of path traversal weaknesses (CWE-22), which often limit which files could be accessed due to idiosyncrasies in filename generation.

Compound Element

an Entry that closely associates two or more CWE entries. The CWE team's research has shown that vulnerabilities often can be described in terms of the interaction or co-occurrence of two or more weaknesses.

Consequence

a fault - a behavior that is always incorrect if executed, i.e., conflicts with the intended security policy.

Control Element

(adapted from CISQ) an abstract term for a function, method, procedure, etc.

Control Sphere

a vulnerability theory term for a set of resources and behaviors that are accessible to a single actor, or a group of actors that all share the same security restrictions. This set can be empty. A product's security model will typically define multiple spheres, although this model might not be explicitly stated. For example, a server might define one sphere for "administrators" who can create new user accounts with subdirectories under /home/server/, and a second sphere might cover the set of users who can create or delete files within their own subdirectories. A third sphere might be "users who are authenticated to the operating system on which the product is installed." Each sphere has different sets of actors and allowable behaviors. Vulnerabilities can arise when the boundaries of a control sphere are not properly enforced, or when a control sphere is defined in a way that allows more actors or resources than the developer or system operator intends. For example, an application might intend to allow guest users to access files that are only within a given directory, but a path traversal attack could allow access to files that are outside of that directory, which are thus outside of the intended sphere of control.

Crossover Point

a vulnerability theory term for the location in code after which an expected property is violated. This is likely to lead to incorrect actions at a later point. For example, a programmer might use a regular expression to restrict an input string to contain only digits, such as for a telephone number. After applying the regular expression, the string is expected to have the property "only contains digits." If the regular expression is incorrectly specified (e.g., only testing for the presence of a digit anywhere in the string), then after its application, the code reaches a crossover point because the string does not necessarily have the property of "only contains digits." For example, in SQL injection, the code reads an input from a parameter (interaction point), incorrectly checks the input for dangerous characters (crossover point), inserts the input into a dynamically generated query string, then sends the query string to the database server (trigger point), then the query is processed by the server (activation point). See the Vulnerability Theory paper for more details.

Denylist

a list or group of characters, strings, patterns, or other elements that is used to identify whether certain data should be denied or rejected; treated as dangerous; removed; or modified before being processed.

Enforce

a general term, meaning to check or manipulate a resource so that it has a property that is required by the security policy. For example, the filtering of all non-alphanumeric characters from an input is one mechanism to enforce that "all characters are alphanumeric." An alternate method of enforcement would be to reject the input entirely if it contains anything that's non-alphanumeric.

Entry

any type of item in the CWE list that has been assigned a unique identifier.

Equivalence

a security property in which two identifiers, inputs, resources, or behaviors have syntactically different representations, but are ultimately treated as being the same. For example, in Windows systems, the filenames "MyFile.txt" and "MYFILE.TXT" are equivalent because they refer to the same underlying file object. The inability to recognize equivalence is often a factor in vulnerabilities.

Explicit Slice

a Slice whose membership is determined by some external criterion that is represented using HasMember relationships between the view and those entries, but not between entries themselves. An example is CWE-635, which lists the CWE identifiers that being used by NVD.

Filter

to perform Filtering.

Filtering

the removal of elements from input or output based on some criteria. This term may apply to removal of elements regardless of security implications.

Graph

a View that specifies relationships between entries, typically of a hierarchical nature. The root level nodes of the view are specified using HasMember relationships. Children are specified using ChildOf or other relationships.

Handle

in the vulnerability theory model of error handling, to modify execution based on the results of a check for an error or exceptional condition.

ICTA

Interaction/Crossover/Trigger/Activation, an acronym for the vulnerability theory terms for important locations in code artifacts.

IP

In networking: "Internet Protocol". In hardware: an "Intellectual Property".

Implicit Slice

a Slice that defines its membership based on common characteristics of entries, such as weaknesses that can appear in C programs (CWE-658).

Improper

used as a catch-all term to cover security behaviors that are either "Missing" or "Insufficient/Incorrect." Note: this term is being used inconsistently in CWE, although it has been more clearly defined since CWE 1.2.

Incorrect

a general term, used to describe when a behavior attempts to do a task but does not do it correctly. This is distinct from "Missing," in which the developer does not even attempt to perform the behavior. This is similar to "Insufficient." Note: this term is being used inconsistently in CWE, although it has been more clearly defined since CWE 1.2.

Information Exposure

the intentional or unintentional disclosure of information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.

Insecure

Use of this term is discouraged in names and descriptions for CWE weaknesses, since it does not provide any hint about the actual error that was introduced by the developer. Some unreviewed entries may still use this term, although it will be corrected in future versions of CWE. This is a general term used to describe a behavior that is incorrect and has security implications.

Insufficient

a general term used to describe when a security property or behavior can vary in strength on a continuous or sliding scale, instead of a discrete scale. The continuous scale may vary depending on the context and risk tolerance. For example, the requirements for randomness may vary between a random selection for a greeting message versus the generation of a military-strength key. On the other hand, a weakness that allows a buffer overflow is always incorrect - there is not a sliding scale that varies across contexts. Note: this this term has been used inconsistently in CWE, although it was more clearly defined beginning in CWE 1.4.

Interaction Point

a vulnerability theory term for the point in code from which input is obtained from the external environment. For example, in SQL injection, the code reads an input from a parameter (interaction point), incorrectly checks the input for dangerous characters (crossover point), inserts the input into a dynamically generated query string, then sends the query string to the database server (trigger point), then the query is processed by the server (activation point). See the Vulnerability Theory paper for more details.

Internal

used to describe a manipulation that occurs within an identifier or input, and not at the beginning or the end. This term is often used in conjunction with special elements. For example, the string "/etc//passwd" has multiple internal "/" characters, or "<SCRI.PT>" has an internal "." character.

Invokable Element

An abstract term, defined to cover the concepts of "named-callable" elements and "method control" elements, as defined by CISQ.

Leading

1) used to describe a manipulation that occurs at the beginning of an identifier or input. This term is often used in conjunction with special elements. For example, the string "//etc/passwd" has multiple leading "/" characters. 2) used to describe the transition from a primary to resultant weakness in a chain

Loose Composite

an informal term for describing a CWE entry that the general public thinks of as an individual weakness, but is actually a disjoint list of multiple distinct weaknesses - i.e., a narrowly-defined category. An example of a loose composite is "insecure temporary file" - the temporary file could have permissions problems, be used as a semaphore, be part of a race condition, etc.

MAID

Modification of Assumed-Immutable Data. Originating in the early years of CWE, this describes a case in which the developer (and the code) assumes that certain data cannot be modified or influenced by an adversary, but it can.

Manipulation

the modification of a resource by an actor, typically to change its properties. Usually used in the context of software as it manipulates inputs and system resources to ensure that security properties are enforced.

Method Control Element

(adapted from CISQ) an abstract term for a method that can be explicitly invoked by its name. See "Callable Element."

Missing

used to describe a behavior that the developer has not attempted to perform. This is distinct from "incorrect," which describes when the developer attempts to perform the behavior, but does not do it correctly. Note: this term is being used inconsistently in CWE, although it has been more clearly defined since CWE 1.2.

Named Chain

a Chain that appears so frequently that a CWE ID has been assigned to it, such as CWE-680 (Integer Overflow to Buffer Overflow).

Natural Hierarchy

the term used in Draft 9 for the Research Concepts View (CWE-1000).

Neutralization

a general term to describe the process of ensuring that input or output has certain security properties before it is used. This is independent of the specific protection mechanism that performs the neutralization. The term could refer to one or more of the following: filtering/cleansing, canonicalization/resolution, encoding/decoding, escaping/unescaping, quoting/unquoting, validation, or other mechanisms.

Neutralize

to perform Neutralization.

Node

another term for a CWE entry, especially used before CWE 1.0.

Permissions

the explicit specifications for a resource, or a set of resources, that defines which actors are allowed to access that resource, and which actions may be performed by those actors. Permissions can contribute to the definition of one or more intended control spheres.

Pillar Weakness

the highest-level weakness that cannot be made any more abstract. Pillars are the top-level entries in the Research Concepts View (CWE-1000) and represent an abstract theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A pillar is different from a category as a pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a category represents a common characteristic used to group related things. For example, Incorrect Calculation (CWE-682) is an example of a pillar, as it describes a mistake but does not imply anything specific about where such a mistake is made or the type of resource that is affected.

Plaintext

information that is used as the input to an encryption algorithm, which might contain already-encrypted text. Many people use the "plaintext" term to mean "unencrypted," and others may use "cleartext" to mean the same thing.

Platform Resource

a resource that is provided by a platform, e.g., messaging, stream, lock, file, directory, etc.

Primary Weakness

a weakness that is an initial, critical error (root cause) that can expose other weaknesses later in a chain.

Property

a vulnerability theory term for the security-relevant characteristic of an individual resource or behavior that is important to the system's intended security model, which might change over time. For example, user input is initially untrusted; after the system neutralizes the input, when the input is finally processed, it must be treated as trusted. This illustrates the Trustability property.

Protection Mechanism

a vulnerability theory term for a set of behaviors that helps to enforce an implicit or explicit security policy for the product, such as an input validation routine.

Reliance

a security-relevant assumption that a resource has a given property, which can lead to weaknesses if that property cannot be guaranteed. For example, an access control protection mechanism might use reverse DNS lookups (CWE-247) in an attempt to limit access to systems in a particular domain; however, this reliance on DNS introduces a weakness because DNS results can be spoofed.

Resolution

the process of converting a resource identifier to a single, canonical form. For example, code that converts "/tmp/abc/../def.xyz" to "/tmp/def.xyz" is performing resolution on an identifier that is being used for a file resource.

Resolve

to perform Resolution.

Resource

a vulnerability theory term for an object or entity that is accessed or modified within the operation of the product, such as memory, CPU, files, or sockets. Resources can be system-level (memory or CPU), code-level (function or variable), or application-level (cookie or message).

Resultant Weakness

a weakness that is only exposed to attack after another weakness has been exploited; an early link in a chain.

SDLC

Software Development Lifecycle.

Sanitization

Sanitize

This term is discouraged for use in CWE.

Security Policy

in vulnerability theory, a set of valid behaviors, properties, and resources within the context of operation of a product. The policy is generally implicit (as reflected in the code, or the programmer's assumptions), but it can be explicit.

Slice

a view that is a flat list of CWE entries that does not specify any relationships between those entries.

Special Element

a general term for a sequence of bytes, characters, or words that is used to separate different portions of data within a particular representation or language. The most commonly understood usage of special elements is in single characters, such as the "<" in HTML, which marks the beginning of a tag. As another example, the CRLF (carriage return / line feed) character is used as a separator between headers in MIME messages, so CRLF is a special element. When multi-part MIME messages are constructed, the boundary string becomes a special element. Special elements are often important in weaknesses that can be exploited by injection attacks. A special element in one representation might not be special in another. For example, whitespace is a special element when executing a command in a shell (since it acts as an argument separator), but it has no special meaning in the body of HTML or email messages.

Sphere of Control

See Control Sphere

Technology

Information and communications technology (ICT), as defined by Wikipedia: "a broad subject [that] covers any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit, or receive information electronically in a digital form (e.g., personal computers including smartphones, digital television, email, or robots)."

Technology-Specific

Applicable to one or more specific classes of Information and communications technology (ICT), instead of a broad range of technologies. See "Technology".

Trailing

used to describe a manipulation that occurs at the end of an identifier or input. This term is often used in conjunction with special elements. For example, the string "example.com." has a trailing "." character.

Trigger Point

a vulnerability theory term for the location in code after which the software can no longer prevent itself from violating the intended security policy. For example, in SQL injection, the code reads an input from a parameter (interaction point), incorrectly checks the input for dangerous characters (crossover point), inserts the input into a dynamically generated query string, then sends the query string to the database server (trigger point), then the query is processed by the server (activation point). See the Vulnerability Theory paper for more details.

Unexpected

violating the assumptions of the developer or operator of the product. This is typically used to describe the state of the product, a behavior that was not intended, or a property of a resource that was not assumed to be present. For example, if an e-commerce program allows a user to specify the quantity of items to purchase, and the program assumes that the quantity will be a number, then the string "abcde" is unexpected. A program crash is usually unexpected behavior. Similarly, when a programmer dereferences a pointer, it is usually unexpected if that pointer can be NULL. Attacks often leverage unexpected properties and behaviors, since the developer has not necessarily provided a sufficient defense.

Variant Weakness

a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. For example the variant weakness "Private Data Structure Returned From A Public Method" (CWE-495) describes an issue (inappropriate action) with a behavior (Return) associated with a specific resource (Data Structure) with a given property (Private). Another example is "Use of sizeof() on a Pointer Type" (CWE-467) which describes an issue (Use of) with a behavior (application of a function) against a resource (Pointer) within an implied language (those that support Pointer Types).


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