Weakness · Medium
CWE-1428: Reliance on HTTP instead of HTTPS
What it is
The product provides or relies on use of HTTP communications when HTTPS is available.
- Severity (our rating)
- Medium
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Introduced during
- Architecture and Design, Implementation, Operation, Requirements
- Exploited in the wild
- No CVE in CISA's catalog
In more detail
Because HTTP communications are not encrypted, HTTP is subject to various attacks against confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. However, unlike many other protocols, HTTPS is widely available as a more secure alternative, because it uses encryption.
What an attacker can do
- Read Application Data (Confidentiality, Integrity)
- Modify Application Data (Confidentiality, Integrity)
How to prevent it
Architecture and Design
- Explicitly require HTTPS or another mechanism that ensures that communication is encrypted.
Implementation
- Avoid using "mixed content," i.e., serving a web page over HTTPS in which the page includes elements that use "http:" URLs. This is often done for images or other resources that do not seem to have privacy or security implications.
- Perform "HTTPS forcing," that is, redirecting HTTP requests to HTTPS.
Operation
- If the product supports multiple protocols, ensure that encrypted protocols (such as HTTPS) are required, and remove any unencrypted protocols (such as HTTP).
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Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.