MITRE lately launched its yearly record of the 2024 CWE High 25 Most Harmful Software program Weaknesses.
This record differs from lists that comprise the most typical vulnerabilities, as it’s not a listing of vulnerabilities, however reasonably 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 probably pave the best way for vulnerabilities and assaults, so it’s vital to pay attention to them and mitigate them as a lot as potential.
In keeping with Summers, one pattern on this yr’s record is that whereas some weaknesses moved up or down the record, quite a lot of the weaknesses on the record are traditional weaknesses which were round for years, akin to those who allow SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
“The extra you perceive these weaknesses, and also you draw connections between these items, you may really begin to remove complete courses of issues that we see so many occasions,” he stated.
Addressing these weaknesses not solely improves product safety, but in addition has the potential to save lots of 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 yr’s record consists of the next weaknesses:
- Improper Neutralization of Enter Throughout Internet Web page Technology (‘Cross-site Scripting’)
- Out-of-bounds Write
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Components 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 Components utilized in an OS Command (‘OS Command Injection’)
- Use After Free
- Lacking Authorization
- Unrestricted Add of File with Harmful Sort
- Improper Management of Technology of Code (‘Code Injection’)
- Improper Enter Validation
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Components utilized in a Command (‘Command Injection’)
- Improper Authentication
- Improper Privilege Administration
- Deserialization of Untrusted Information
- Publicity of Delicate Data to an Unauthorized Actor
- Incorrect Authorization
- Server-Facet Request Forgery (SSRF)
- Improper Restriction of Operations throughout the Bounds of a Reminiscence Buffer
- NULL Pointer Dereference
- Use of Exhausting-coded Credentials
- Integer Overflow or Wraparound
- Uncontrolled Useful resource Consumption
- Lacking Authentication for Essential Operate
The dataset the record relies on consists of data for 31,779 Widespread Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) printed between June 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024.
In keeping with Summers, this yr, the methodology through which the record was created was totally different than in previous years as a result of MITRE and CISA concerned the broader safety neighborhood to research the dataset, whereas in earlier years MITRE’s Widespread Weak point Enumeration (CWE) group labored alone.
This will likely have resulted in lots of modifications from earlier years, and this yr’s record solely featured three weaknesses that retained the identical rating as final yr: #3 Improper Neutralization of Particular Components utilized in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’), #10 Unrestricted Add of File with Harmful Sort, and #19 Server-Facet Request Forgery (SSRF).
The weaknesses that had the largest upward transfer from final yr’s record are #4 Cross-Web site Request Forgery, which moved up 5 ranks; #11 Improper Management of Technology 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 embody #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 Essential Operate, which moved down 5 ranks.
This yr additionally noticed two new entries to the record and two entries that left the High 25. New entries embody #17 Publicity of Delicate Data 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 potential explanation for the modifications 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 isn’t clear whether or not these gaps have an effect on the relative rankings, because the distribution of unmapped CVEs appears prone to align roughly with the CWE distribution of your complete information set,” MITRE wrote.