Vulnerability Mapping:DISCOURAGEDThis CWE ID should not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities Abstraction:
PillarPillar - 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.
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Description
The product does not ensure or incorrectly ensures that structured messages or data are well-formed and that certain security properties are met before being read from an upstream component or sent to a downstream component.
Extended Description
If a message is malformed, it may cause the message to be incorrectly interpreted.
Neutralization is an abstract term for any technique that ensures that input (and output) conforms with expectations and is "safe." This can be done by:
checking that the input/output is already "safe" (e.g. validation)
transformation of the input/output to be "safe" using techniques such as filtering, encoding/decoding, escaping/unescaping, quoting/unquoting, or canonicalization
preventing the input/output from being directly provided by an attacker (e.g. "indirect selection" that maps externally-provided values to internally-controlled values)
preventing the input/output from being processed at all
This weakness typically applies in cases where the product prepares a control message that another process must act on, such as a command or query, and malicious input that was intended as data, can enter the control plane instead. However, this weakness also applies to more general cases where there are not always control implications.
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.
Impact
Details
Other
Scope: Other
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" (View-1000)
Nature
Type
ID
Name
MemberOf
View - a subset of CWE entries that provides a way of examining CWE content. The two main view structures are Slices (flat lists) and Graphs (containing relationships between entries).
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.
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.
Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')
ParentOf
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Improper Handling of Syntactically Invalid Structure
ParentOf
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.
Improper Handling of Inconsistent Structural Elements
ParentOf
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.
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
REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.
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
Class: Not Language-Specific
(Undetermined Prevalence)
Operating Systems
Class: Not OS-Specific
(Undetermined Prevalence)
Architectures
Class: Not Architecture-Specific
(Undetermined Prevalence)
Technologies
Class: Not Technology-Specific
(Undetermined Prevalence)
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 should not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)
Reason
Abstraction
Rationale
This CWE entry is extremely high-level, a Pillar.
Comments
Consider children or descendants of this entry instead.
Notes
Maintenance
Concepts such as validation, data transformation, and neutralization are being refined, so relationships between CWE-20 and other entries such as CWE-707 may change in future versions, along with an update to the Vulnerability Theory document.
Note: this date reflects when the entry was first published. Draft versions of this entry were provided to members of the CWE community and modified between Draft 9 and 1.0.
Modifications
Modification Date
Modifier
Organization
2025-04-03
(CWE 4.17, 2025-04-03)
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2024-07-16
(CWE 4.15, 2024-07-16)
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2023-06-29
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
2023-04-27
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships, Time_of_Introduction
2022-04-28
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2020-08-20
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2020-06-25
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Description, Maintenance_Notes
2020-02-24
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, Description, Name, Relationships, Type
2019-06-20
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships
2019-01-03
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2017-11-08
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships
2017-01-19
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2015-12-07
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, Relationships
2014-07-30
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2014-02-18
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2012-05-11
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships
2011-06-01
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2009-07-27
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2009-05-27
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Description, Name
2009-03-10
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2009-01-12
CWE Content Team
MITRE
updated Relationships
2008-07-01
Eric Dalci
Cigital
updated Time_of_Introduction
Previous Entry Names
Change Date
Previous Entry Name
2009-05-27
Failure to Enforce that Messages or Data are Well-Formed
2020-02-24
Improper Enforcement of Message or Data Structure
More information is available — Please edit the custom filter or select a different filter.
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.
