CWE-685: Function Call With Incorrect Number of Arguments
Weakness ID: 685
Vulnerability Mapping:ALLOWEDThis CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities Abstraction:
VariantVariant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.
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Description
The product calls a function, procedure, or routine, but the caller specifies too many arguments, or too few arguments, which may lead to undefined behavior and resultant weaknesses.
Common Consequences
This 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.
Scope
Impact
Likelihood
Other
Technical Impact: Quality Degradation
Potential Mitigations
Phase: Testing
Because this function call often produces incorrect behavior it will usually be detected during testing or normal operation of the product. During testing exercise all possible control paths will typically expose this weakness except in rare cases when the incorrect function call accidentally produces the correct results or if the provided argument type is very similar to the expected argument type.
Relationships
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 and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user
may want to explore.
Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (CWE-1000)
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.
The 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
Note
Implementation
This problem typically occurs when the programmer makes a typo, or copy and paste errors.
Applicable Platforms
This 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.
Languages
C
(Undetermined Prevalence)
Perl
(Undetermined Prevalence)
Weakness Ordinalities
Ordinality
Description
Primary
(where the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
Detection
Methods
Other
While this weakness might be caught by the compiler in some languages, it can occur more frequently in cases in which the called function accepts variable numbers of arguments, such as format strings in C. It also can occur in languages or environments that do not require that functions always be called with the correct number of arguments, such as Perl.
Memberships
This 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
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.
(this CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)
Reason:
Acceptable-Use
Rationale:
This CWE entry is at the Variant level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.
Comments:
Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.
Taxonomy
Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy Name
Node ID
Fit
Mapped Node Name
Software Fault Patterns
SFP1
Glitch in computation
CERT C Secure Coding
EXP37-C
CWE More Specific
Call functions with the correct number and type of arguments
Description
This 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.
