Weakness · Medium
CWE-366: Race Condition within a Thread
What it is
If two threads of execution use a resource simultaneously, there exists the possibility that resources may be used while invalid, in turn making the state of execution undefined.
- Severity (our rating)
- Medium
- Likelihood of exploit
- Medium
- Introduced during
- Implementation
- Exploited in the wild
- No CVE in CISA's catalog
What an attacker can do
- Alter Execution Logic (Integrity, Other)
- Unexpected State (Integrity, Other)
How to prevent it
Architecture and Design
- Use locking functionality. This is the recommended solution. Implement some form of locking mechanism around code which alters or reads persistent data in a multithreaded environment.
- Create resource-locking validation checks. If no inherent locking mechanisms exist, use flags and signals to enforce your own blocking scheme when resources are being used by other threads of execution.
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.)
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.