Weakness · High
CWE-326: Inadequate Encryption Strength
What it is
The product stores or transmits sensitive data using an encryption scheme that is theoretically sound, but is not strong enough for the level of protection required.
- Severity (our rating)
- High
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Introduced during
- Architecture and Design
- Exploited in the wild
- 4 known exploited CVEs
In more detail
A weak encryption scheme can be subjected to brute force attacks that have a reasonable chance of succeeding using current attack methods and resources.
What an attacker can do
- Bypass Protection Mechanism (Access Control, Confidentiality)
- Read Application Data (Access Control, Confidentiality)
How to prevent it
Architecture and Design
- Use an encryption scheme that is currently considered to be strong by experts in the field.
How to find it
- Automated Static Analysis. Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)
Exploited in the wild: 4 CVEs
Vulnerabilities caused by CWE-326 that attackers have used, from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, newest first.
- CVE-2017-11317Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX Unrestricted File Upload Vulnerability · added April 11, 2022
- CVE-2017-1000486Primetek Primefaces Remote Code Execution Vulnerability · added January 10, 2022
- CVE-2018-18325DotNetNuke (DNN) Inadequate Encryption Strength Vulnerability · added November 3, 2021
- CVE-2018-15811DotNetNuke (DNN) Inadequate Encryption Strength Vulnerability · added November 3, 2021
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Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.