CWE-691: Insufficient Control Flow Management
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Edit Custom FilterThe code does not sufficiently manage its control flow during execution, creating conditions in which the control flow can be modified in unexpected ways.
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.
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,
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Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (CWE-1000)
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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.
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 Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence) Technologies Class: Not Technology-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence) Example 1 The following function attempts to acquire a lock in order to perform operations on a shared resource. (bad code)
Example Language: C
void f(pthread_mutex_t *mutex) {
pthread_mutex_lock(mutex);
/* access shared resource */ pthread_mutex_unlock(mutex); However, the code does not check the value returned by pthread_mutex_lock() for errors. If pthread_mutex_lock() cannot acquire the mutex for any reason, the function may introduce a race condition into the program and result in undefined behavior. In order to avoid data races, correctly written programs must check the result of thread synchronization functions and appropriately handle all errors, either by attempting to recover from them or reporting them to higher levels. (good code)
Example Language: C
int f(pthread_mutex_t *mutex) {
int result;
result = pthread_mutex_lock(mutex); if (0 != result) return result;
/* access shared resource */ return pthread_mutex_unlock(mutex); Example 2 In this example, the programmer has indented the statements to call Do_X() and Do_Y(), as if the intention is that these functions are only called when the condition is true. However, because there are no braces to signify the block, Do_Y() will always be executed, even if the condition is false. (bad code)
Example Language: C
if (condition==true)
Do_X();
Do_Y(); This might not be what the programmer intended. When the condition is critical for security, such as in making a security decision or detecting a critical error, this may produce a vulnerability. Example 3 This function prints the contents of a specified file requested by a user. (bad code)
Example Language: PHP
function printFile($username,$filename){
//read file into string $file = file_get_contents($filename); if ($file && isOwnerOf($username,$filename)){ echo $file; }return true; else{ echo 'You are not authorized to view this file'; }return false; This code first reads a specified file into memory, then prints the file if the user is authorized to see its contents. The read of the file into memory may be resource intensive and is unnecessary if the user is not allowed to see the file anyway.
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.
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