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Weakness · Medium

CWE-390: Detection of Error Condition Without Action

What it is

The product detects a specific error, but takes no actions to handle the error.

Likelihood of exploit: Medium1 exploited in the wildMITRE CWE 4.19.1

Severity (our rating)
Medium
Likelihood of exploit
Medium
Introduced during
Implementation
Exploited in the wild
1 known exploited CVE

What an attacker can do

  • Varies by Context (Integrity, Other)
  • Unexpected State (Integrity, Other)
  • Alter Execution Logic (Integrity, Other)

How to prevent it

Implementation

  • Properly handle each exception. This is the recommended solution. Ensure that all exceptions are handled in such a way that you can be sure of the state of your system at any given moment.
  • If a function returns an error, it is important to either fix the problem and try again, alert the user that an error has happened and let the program continue, or alert the user and close and cleanup the program.

Testing

  • Subject the product to extensive testing to discover some of the possible instances of where/how errors or return values are not handled. Consider testing techniques such as ad hoc, equivalence partitioning, robustness and fault tolerance, mutation, and fuzzing.

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.)

CWE-390 on MITRE's CWE site

Exploited in the wild: 1 CVE

Vulnerabilities caused by CWE-390 that attackers have used, from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, newest first.

All known exploited vulnerabilities

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