MITRE not too long ago launched its yearly record of the 2024 CWE Prime 25 Most Harmful Software program Weaknesses.
This record differs from lists that include the most typical vulnerabilities, as it’s not a listing of vulnerabilities, however reasonably weaknesses in system design that may be exploited to leverage vulnerabilities.
“By definition, code injection is an assault, and after we take into consideration the Prime 25 it’s figuring out the weaknesses beneath,” mentioned Alec Summers, undertaking chief for the CVE and CWE packages at MITRE.
These weaknesses can doubtlessly pave the way in which for vulnerabilities and assaults, so it’s essential to concentrate on them and mitigate them as a lot as potential.
In response to Summers, one development on this yr’s record is that whereas some weaknesses moved up or down the record, a whole lot of the weaknesses on the record are traditional weaknesses which were round for years, corresponding to people who allow SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
“The extra you perceive these weaknesses, and also you draw connections between these items, you’ll be able to really begin to get rid of complete lessons of issues that we see so many instances,” he mentioned.
Addressing these weaknesses not solely improves product safety, but in addition has the potential to save lots of firms cash as a result of “the extra weaknesses we keep away from in product growth, the much less vulnerabilities to handle after deployment,” he defined.
This yr’s record consists of the next weaknesses:
- Improper Neutralization of Enter Throughout Internet Web page Technology (‘Cross-site Scripting’)
- Out-of-bounds Write
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’)
- Cross-Web site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Listing (‘Path Traversal’)
- Out-of-bounds Learn
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in an OS Command (‘OS Command Injection’)
- Use After Free
- Lacking Authorization
- Unrestricted Add of File with Harmful Sort
- Improper Management of Technology of Code (‘Code Injection’)
- Improper Enter Validation
- Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in a Command (‘Command Injection’)
- Improper Authentication
- Improper Privilege Administration
- Deserialization of Untrusted Information
- Publicity of Delicate Data to an Unauthorized Actor
- Incorrect Authorization
- Server-Aspect Request Forgery (SSRF)
- Improper Restriction of Operations throughout the Bounds of a Reminiscence Buffer
- NULL Pointer Dereference
- Use of Exhausting-coded Credentials
- Integer Overflow or Wraparound
- Uncontrolled Useful resource Consumption
- Lacking Authentication for Vital Perform
The dataset the record relies on consists of information for 31,779 Frequent Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) printed between June 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024.
In response to Summers, this yr, the technique by which the record was created was totally different than in previous years as a result of MITRE and CISA concerned the broader safety group to investigate the dataset, whereas in earlier years MITRE’s Frequent Weak spot Enumeration (CWE) workforce labored alone.
This may occasionally have resulted in lots of adjustments from earlier years, and this yr’s record solely featured three weaknesses that retained the identical rating as final yr: #3 Improper Neutralization of Particular Parts utilized in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’), #10 Unrestricted Add of File with Harmful Sort, and #19 Server-Aspect Request Forgery (SSRF).
The weaknesses that had the largest upward transfer from final yr’s record are #4 Cross-Web site Request Forgery, which moved up 5 ranks; #11 Improper Management of Technology of Code (‘Code Injection’), which moved up 12 ranks; #15 Improper Privilege Administration, which moved up seven ranks; and #18 Incorrect Authorization, which moved up six ranks.
Weaknesses that moved down in rank considerably embody #12 Improper Enter Validation, which moved down six ranks; #21 NULL Pointer Dereference, which moved down 9 ranks; #23 Integer Overflow or Wraparound, which moved down 9 ranks; and #25 Lacking Authentication for Vital Perform, which moved down 5 ranks.
This yr additionally noticed two new entries to the record and two entries that left the Prime 25. New entries embody #17 Publicity of Delicate Data to an Unauthorized Actor and #24 Uncontrolled Useful resource Consumption. Earlier entries not within the Prime 25 are Concurrent Execution utilizing Shared Useful resource with Improper Synchronization (‘Race Situation’) and Incorrect Default Permissions.
In response to MITRE, one potential reason behind the adjustments is that they didn’t obtain CWE mappings from the U.S. Nationwide Vulnerability Database analysts for the CVE information from the primary half of 2024.
“It isn’t clear whether or not these gaps have an effect on the relative rankings, for the reason that distribution of unmapped CVEs appears prone to align roughly with the CWE distribution of all the knowledge set,” MITRE wrote.
