CWE - CWE-251: Often Misused: String Management (4.11)

Category ID: 251

Summary

Functions that manipulate strings encourage buffer overflows.

Membership

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	227	7PK - API Abuse
MemberOf	Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	974	SFP Secondary Cluster: Incorrect Buffer Length Computation

Notes

Mapping

Use for Mapping: Prohibited (this CWE ID must not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities).

Rationale: this entry is a Category. Using categories for mapping has been an actively discouraged practice since at least 2019. Categories are informal organizational groupings of weaknesses that help navigation and browsing by CWE users, but they are not weaknesses in themselves.

Comments: See member weaknesses of this category.

References

[REF-6] Katrina Tsipenyuk, Brian Chess and Gary McGraw. "Seven Pernicious Kingdoms: A Taxonomy of Software Security Errors". NIST Workshop on Software Security Assurance Tools Techniques and Metrics. NIST. 2005-11-07. <https://samate.nist.gov/SSATTM_Content/papers/Seven%20Pernicious%20Kingdoms%20-%20Taxonomy%20of%20Sw%20Security%20Errors%20-%20Tsipenyuk%20-%20Chess%20-%20McGraw.pdf>.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2006-07-19	7 Pernicious Kingdoms
2006-07-19
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2008-08-01		KDM Analytics
2008-08-01	added/updated white box definitions
2008-09-08	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2008-09-08	updated Applicable_Platforms, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2017-11-08	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2017-11-08	updated Affected_Resources, Applicable_Platforms, Demonstrative_Examples, Relationships, White_Box_Definitions
2020-02-24	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020-02-24	updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2020-06-25	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020-06-25	updated References
2023-04-27	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023-04-27	updated Mapping_Notes

Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE CATEGORY: Often Misused: String Management


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