Weakness · Medium
CWE-656: Reliance on Security Through Obscurity
What it is
The product uses a protection mechanism whose strength depends heavily on its obscurity, such that knowledge of its algorithms or key data is sufficient to defeat the mechanism.
- Severity (our rating)
- Medium
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Introduced during
- Architecture and Design, Implementation
- Exploited in the wild
- No CVE in CISA's catalog
In more detail
This reliance on "security through obscurity" can produce resultant weaknesses if an attacker is able to reverse engineer the inner workings of the mechanism. Note that obscurity can be one small part of defense in depth, since it can create more work for an attacker; however, it is a significant risk if used as the primary means of protection.
What an attacker can do
- Other (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Other)
How to prevent it
Architecture and Design
- Always consider whether knowledge of your code or design is sufficient to break it. Reverse engineering is a highly successful discipline, and financially feasible for motivated adversaries. Black-box techniques are established for binary analysis of executables that use obfuscation, runtime analysis of proprietary protocols, inferring file formats, and others.
- When available, use publicly-vetted algorithms and procedures, as these are more likely to undergo more extensive security analysis and testing. This is especially the case with encryption and authentication.
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Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.