Weakness · High
CWE-187: Partial String Comparison
What it is
The product performs a comparison that only examines a portion of a factor before determining whether there is a match, such as a substring, leading to resultant weaknesses.
- Severity (our rating)
- High
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Introduced during
- Implementation
- Exploited in the wild
- No CVE in CISA's catalog
In more detail
For example, an attacker might succeed in authentication by providing a small password that matches the associated portion of the larger, correct password.
What an attacker can do
- Alter Execution Logic (Integrity, Access Control)
- Bypass Protection Mechanism (Integrity, Access Control)
How to prevent it
Testing
- Thoroughly test the comparison scheme before deploying code into production. Perform positive testing as well as negative testing.
H2 Security
Found it in your code?
We review where it appears, fix it with your team, and check it was not already used against you.
Talk to our teamT Academy
Stop writing it in the first place
Learn to build software and systems without weaknesses like this one, with practice on real hosts in your browser, every objective checked on the machine.
Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.