Weakness · High
CWE-923: Improper Restriction of Communication Channel to Intended Endpoints
What it is
The product establishes a communication channel to (or from) an endpoint for privileged or protected operations, but it does not properly ensure that it is communicating with the correct endpoint.
- Severity (our rating)
- High
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Introduced during
- Architecture and Design
- Exploited in the wild
- 1 known exploited CVE
In more detail
Attackers might be able to spoof the intended endpoint from a different system or process, thus gaining the same level of access as the intended endpoint. While this issue frequently involves authentication between network-based clients and servers, other types of communication channels and endpoints can have this weakness.
What an attacker can do
- Gain Privileges or Assume Identity (Integrity, Confidentiality)
How to prevent it
MITRE lists no specific mitigation for this weakness. Treat it like its parent weaknesses below: validate input, keep the design simple and review the code where it could appear.
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: 1 CVE
Vulnerabilities caused by CWE-923 that attackers have used, from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, newest first.
H2 Security
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Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.