CWE

Common Weakness Enumeration

A Community-Developed List of Software & Hardware Weakness Types

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ID

CWE-1074: Class with Excessively Deep Inheritance

Weakness ID: 1074
Abstraction: Base
Structure: Simple
View customized information:
+ Description
A class has an inheritance level that is too high, i.e., it has a large number of parent classes.
+ Extended Description

This issue makes it more difficult to understand and maintain the product, which indirectly affects security by making it more difficult or time-consuming to find and/or fix vulnerabilities. It also might make it easier to introduce vulnerabilities.

While the interpretation of "large number of parent classes" may vary for each product or developer, CISQ recommends a default maximum of 7 parent classes.

+ Relationships
Section HelpThis table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.
+ Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (CWE-1000)
NatureTypeIDName
ChildOfClassClass - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.1093Excessively Complex Data Representation
Section HelpThis table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.
+ Relevant to the view "Software Development" (CWE-699)
NatureTypeIDName
MemberOfCategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.1226Complexity Issues
+ Common Consequences
Section HelpThis table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.
ScopeImpactLikelihood
Other

Technical Impact: Reduce Maintainability

+ Weakness Ordinalities
OrdinalityDescription
Indirect
(where the weakness is a quality issue that might indirectly make it easier to introduce security-relevant weaknesses or make them more difficult to detect)
+ Memberships
Section HelpThis MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.
NatureTypeIDName
MemberOfCategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.1130CISQ Quality Measures (2016) - Maintainability
MemberOfCategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.1307CISQ Quality Measures - Maintainability
+ Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy NameNode IDFitMapped Node Name
OMG ASCMMASCMM-MNT-17
+ References
[REF-960] Object Management Group (OMG). "Automated Source Code Maintainability Measure (ASCMM)". ASCMM-MNT-17. 2016-01. <http://www.omg.org/spec/ASCMM/1.0>.
+ Content History
+ Submissions
Submission DateSubmitterOrganization
2018-07-02CWE Content TeamMITRE
Entry derived from Common Quality Enumeration (CQE) Draft 0.9.
+ Modifications
Modification DateModifierOrganization
2020-02-24CWE Content TeamMITRE
updated Description, Relationships
2020-08-20CWE Content TeamMITRE
updated Relationships
2023-01-31CWE Content TeamMITRE
updated Description
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Page Last Updated: January 31, 2023