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Welcome to the 2024 Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE™) Top 25 Most Dangerous
Software Weaknesses list (CWE™ Top 25). This list demonstrates the currently most common and impactful
software weaknesses.
Often easy to find and exploit, these can lead to exploitable vulnerabilities that
allow adversaries to completely take over a system, steal data, or prevent applications from working.
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| 2024 Top 25 List |
Key Insights |
Methodology |
The CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses List highlights the most severe and prevalent weaknesses
behind the 31,770
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures
(CVE™) Records in this year’s dataset. Uncovering the root causes of these vulnerabilities serves
as a powerful guide for investments, policies, and practices to prevent these vulnerabilities from occurring
in the first place — benefiting both industry and government stakeholders.
The CWE Top 25 can help inform:
- Vulnerability Reduction – Insights into the common root causes drive valuable
feedback into vendors’ SDLC and architectural planning, helping to eliminate entire classes of defect
(e.g., memory safety, injection)
- Cost Savings – Fewer vulnerabilities in product development mean fewer issues
to manage post-deployment, ultimately saving money and resources
- Trend Analysis – Insight into data trends enables organizations to better
focus security efforts
- Exploitability Insights – Certain weaknesses such as command injection
attract adversarial attention, enabling risk prioritization.
- Customer Trust – Transparency in how organizations address these weaknesses
shows commitment to product security
The 2024 CWE Top 25
is not only a valuable resource for developers and security professionals, but it also serves as a strategic guide
for organizations aiming to make informed decisions in software, security, and risk management investments.
Also available now:
Top 25 Archive
