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Home > CWE List > CWE-1473: Improper Expiration of Cached Data (5.0)  
ID

CWE-1473: Improper Expiration of Cached Data

Weakness ID: 1473
Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review (with careful review of mapping notes)
Abstraction: Class Class - 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.
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+ Description
The product uses or supports data in a cache, but it does not properly specify an expiration with a date, time, or time period that is sufficient for the intended security policy of the product or its adminstrators.
+ 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.
Impact Details

Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Unexpected State; Varies by Context

Scope: Access Control, Integrity, Other

If the cached data is used for security-critical functionality such as authentication, authorization, or identity, then this might allow users or adversaries to perform operations beyond their expected lifetime. If the data is old but used for identification, such as DNS lookup results, then the stale data could point to entities that are no longer controlled by the intended owner.

+ Potential Mitigations
Phase(s) Mitigation

Architecture and Design; Implementation

For each type of cached data, determine the best lifetime that balances efficiency provided by the cache with the security implications of the data becoming too stale. Explicitly specify an expiration date or time period.

+ Relationships
Section Help This 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, Overlaps, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.
+ Relevant to the view "Complete Weakness Hierarchy" (View-1000)
Nature Type ID Name
ChildOf Pillar Pillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things. 664 Improper Control of a Resource Through its Lifetime
+ Modes Of Introduction
Section HelpThe different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.
Phase(s) Note

Implementation

Developers might inadvertently omit specifying a specific expiration for the data. With some cache mechanisms, this could cause the data to be labeled as having no expiration at all.

+ Applicable Platforms
Section HelpThis listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.
Type Applicable Platforms Notes
Languages

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Architectures

Class: Not Architecture-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Technologies

Class: Not Technology-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

+ Demonstrative Examples

Example 1


Some JVM implementations cache DNS resolution results by default.

(bad code)
Example Language: Algorithm 
The expiry setting of the cached results might either be inappropriately long for the program or set to never expire.

This results in a situation where changes to DNS records seemingly do not take effect in the program. This could cause the product to communicate with IP addresses that are no longer associated with the updated DNS records.

(good code)
Example Language: Algorithm 

To mitigate this situation, the DNS cache setting networkaddress.cache.ttl for the JVM needs to be set appropriately.



+ Selected Observed Examples

Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.

Reference Description
RESTful search engine caches DNS hostname lookups forever in order to prevent DNS spoofing attacks, but it will not be able to detect when the hostnames resolve to a different IP address.
+ 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.
Nature Type ID Name
MemberOf GroupingGrouping - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1416 Comprehensive Categorization: Resource Lifecycle Management
+ Vulnerability Mapping Notes
Usage ALLOWED-WITH-REVIEW
(this CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review)
Reason Abstraction

Rationale

This CWE Entry is a Class and might have lower-level children that would be more appropriate

Comments

Examine children of this entry to see if there is a better fit
+ Notes

Maintenance

Version: 5.0; Release Date: 2026-10-28

This entry was created in CWE 5.0 to address known gaps in CWE coverage. It is not as complete as other new entries that were published in recent years. The CWE Team plans to work with the CWE community to make this entry more complete in later 5.x releases.
+ References
[REF-1579] AWS. "AWS JVM DNS Guidence". 2026.
<https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-java/v1/developer-guide/java-dg-jvm-ttl.html>. (URL validated: 2026-10-26)
[REF-1580] Oracle. "Oracle JVM settings descriptions". 2026.
<https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/net/properties.html>. (URL validated: 2026-10-26)
[REF-1581] clintongormley. "Don't cache resolved hostnames forever". 2016-02-03.
<https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/16412>. (URL validated: 2026-10-26)
+ Content History
+ Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2026-10-25
(CWE 5.0, 2026-10-28)
CWE Content Team MITRE
+ Contributions
Contribution Date Contributor Organization
2022-07-06
(CWE 5.0, 2026-10-28)
CDR contributor jharv1
Suggested coverage for DNS cache behavior in JVMs, which led to a demonstrative example.
Page Last Updated: Oct 28, 2026