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Weakness · High

CWE-682: Incorrect Calculation

What it is

The product performs a calculation that generates incorrect or unintended results that are later used in security-critical decisions or resource management.

Likelihood of exploit: HighMITRE CWE 4.19.1

Severity (our rating)
High
Likelihood of exploit
High
Introduced during
Implementation
Exploited in the wild
No CVE in CISA's catalog

In more detail

When product performs a security-critical calculation incorrectly, it might lead to incorrect resource allocations, incorrect privilege assignments, or failed comparisons among other things. Many of the direct results of an incorrect calculation can lead to even larger problems such as failed protection mechanisms or even arbitrary code execution.

What an attacker can do

  • DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart (Availability, Integrity, Confidentiality)
  • DoS: Resource Consumption (Other) (Integrity, Confidentiality, Availability)
  • Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands (Integrity, Confidentiality, Availability)
  • Gain Privileges or Assume Identity (Access Control)
  • Bypass Protection Mechanism (Access Control)

How to prevent it

Implementation

  • Understand your programming language's underlying representation and how it interacts with numeric calculation. Pay close attention to byte size discrepancies, precision, signed/unsigned distinctions, truncation, conversion and casting between types, "not-a-number" calculations, and how your language handles numbers that are too large or too small for its underlying representation.
  • Perform input validation on any numeric input by ensuring that it is within the expected range. Enforce that the input meets both the minimum and maximum requirements for the expected range.
  • Use the appropriate type for the desired action. For example, in C/C++, only use unsigned types for values that could never be negative, such as height, width, or other numbers related to quantity.
  • Examine compiler warnings closely and eliminate problems with potential security implications, such as signed / unsigned mismatch in memory operations, or use of uninitialized variables. Even if the weakness is rarely exploitable, a single failure may lead to the compromise of the entire system.

Architecture and Design

  • Use languages, libraries, or frameworks that make it easier to handle numbers without unexpected consequences. Examples include safe integer handling packages such as SafeInt (C++) or IntegerLib (C or C++).
  • Use languages, libraries, or frameworks that make it easier to handle numbers without unexpected consequences. Examples include safe integer handling packages such as SafeInt (C++) or IntegerLib (C or C++).

Testing

  • Use automated static analysis tools that target this type of weakness. Many modern techniques use data flow analysis to minimize the number of false positives. This is not a perfect solution, since 100% accuracy and coverage are not feasible.
  • Use dynamic tools and techniques that interact with the product using large test suites with many diverse inputs, such as fuzz testing (fuzzing), robustness testing, and fault injection. The product's operation may slow down, but it should not become unstable, crash, or generate incorrect results.

How to find it

  • Manual Analysis. This weakness can be detected using tools and techniques that require manual (human) analysis, such as penetration testing, threat modeling, and interactive tools that allow the tester to record and modify an active session. Specifically, manual static analysis is useful for evaluating the correctness of allocation calculations. This can be useful for detecting overflow conditions (CWE-190) or similar weaknesses that might have serious security impacts on the program.

CWE-682 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.