Weakness · Medium

CWE-198: Use of Incorrect Byte Ordering

What it is

The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not account for byte ordering (e.g. big-endian and little-endian) when processing the input, causing an incorrect number or value to be used.

MITRE CWE 4.19.1

Severity (our rating)
Medium
Likelihood of exploit
Not rated by MITRE
Introduced during
Implementation
Exploited in the wild
No CVE in CISA's catalog

What an attacker can do

  • Unexpected State (Integrity)

How to prevent it

MITRE lists no specific mitigation for this weakness. Treat it like its parent weaknesses below: validate input, keep the design simple and review the code where it could appear.

How to find it

  • Black Box. Because byte ordering bugs are usually very noticeable even with normal inputs, this bug is more likely to occur in rarely triggered error conditions, making them difficult to detect using black box methods.

CWE-198 on MITRE's CWE site

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Source: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.