MITRE not too long ago launched its yearly record of the 2024 CWE High 25 Most Harmful Software program Weaknesses.
This record differs from lists that include the most typical vulnerabilities, as it isn’t an inventory of vulnerabilities, however relatively weaknesses in system design that may be exploited to leverage vulnerabilities.
“By definition, code injection is an assault, and once we take into consideration the High 25 it’s figuring out the weaknesses beneath,” stated Alec Summers, challenge chief for the CVE and CWE packages at MITRE.
These weaknesses can doubtlessly pave the best way for vulnerabilities and assaults, so it’s vital to pay attention to them and mitigate them as a lot as attainable.
In keeping with Summers, one development on this 12 months’s record is that whereas some weaknesses moved up or down the record, quite a lot of the weaknesses on the record are basic weaknesses which have been round for years, reminiscent of those who allow SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
“The extra you perceive these weaknesses, and also you draw connections between these items, you’ll be able to truly begin to remove entire courses of issues that we see so many instances,” he stated.
Addressing these weaknesses not solely improves product safety, but in addition has the potential to avoid wasting firms cash as a result of “the extra weaknesses we keep away from in product growth, the much less vulnerabilities to handle after deployment,” he defined.
This 12 months’s record contains the next weaknesses:
- Improper Neutralization of Enter Throughout Net Web page Era (‘Cross-site Scripting’)
- Out-of-bounds Write
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’)
- Cross-Web site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Listing (‘Path Traversal’)
- Out-of-bounds Learn
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in an OS Command (‘OS Command Injection’)
- Use After Free
- Lacking Authorization
- Unrestricted Add of File with Harmful Kind
- Improper Management of Era of Code (‘Code Injection’)
- Improper Enter Validation
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in a Command (‘Command Injection’)
- Improper Authentication
- Improper Privilege Administration
- Deserialization of Untrusted Knowledge
- Publicity of Delicate Info to an Unauthorized Actor
- Incorrect Authorization
- Server-Facet Request Forgery (SSRF)
- Improper Restriction of Operations inside the Bounds of a Reminiscence Buffer
- NULL Pointer Dereference
- Use of Arduous-coded Credentials
- Integer Overflow or Wraparound
- Uncontrolled Useful resource Consumption
- Lacking Authentication for Crucial Perform
The dataset the record relies on contains data for 31,779 Frequent Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) revealed between June 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024.
In keeping with Summers, this 12 months, the methodology wherein the record was created was totally different than in previous years as a result of MITRE and CISA concerned the broader safety group to investigate the dataset, whereas in earlier years MITRE’s Frequent Weak spot Enumeration (CWE) workforce labored alone.
This will likely have resulted in lots of adjustments from earlier years, and this 12 months’s record solely featured three weaknesses that retained the identical rating as final 12 months: #3 Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’), #10 Unrestricted Add of File with Harmful Kind, and #19 Server-Facet Request Forgery (SSRF).
The weaknesses that had the largest upward transfer from final 12 months’s record are #4 Cross-Web site Request Forgery, which moved up 5 ranks; #11 Improper Management of Era of Code (‘Code Injection’), which moved up 12 ranks; #15 Improper Privilege Administration, which moved up seven ranks; and #18 Incorrect Authorization, which moved up six ranks.
Weaknesses that moved down in rank considerably embrace #12 Improper Enter Validation, which moved down six ranks; #21 NULL Pointer Dereference, which moved down 9 ranks; #23 Integer Overflow or Wraparound, which moved down 9 ranks; and #25 Lacking Authentication for Crucial Perform, which moved down 5 ranks.
This 12 months additionally noticed two new entries to the record and two entries that left the High 25. New entries embrace #17 Publicity of Delicate Info to an Unauthorized Actor and #24 Uncontrolled Useful resource Consumption. Earlier entries not within the High 25 are Concurrent Execution utilizing Shared Useful resource with Improper Synchronization (‘Race Situation’) and Incorrect Default Permissions.
In keeping with MITRE, one attainable reason for the adjustments is that they didn’t obtain CWE mappings from the U.S. Nationwide Vulnerability Database analysts for the CVE data from the primary half of 2024.
“It’s not clear whether or not these gaps have an effect on the relative rankings, for the reason that distribution of unmapped CVEs appears more likely to align roughly with the CWE distribution of your entire knowledge set,” MITRE wrote.
