CWE-1428

Base Abstraction Level
Pillar — Highest-level weakness category
Class — Abstract, language-independent
Base — Specific enough to detect
Variant — Tied to specific technology
Compound — Requires multiple weaknesses Incomplete MITRE CWE Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development, may change
Incomplete — Partially defined by MITRE
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CWE
Reliance on HTTP instead of HTTPS

Description

The product provides or relies on use of HTTP communications when HTTPS is available.

Because HTTP communications are not encrypted, HTTP is subject to various attacks against confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. However, unlike many other protocols, HTTPS is widely available as a more secure alternative, because it uses encryption.

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity — Read Application Data, Modify Application Data

HTTP can be subjected to attacks against confidentiality (by reading cleartext packets); integrity (by modifying sessions); and authenticity (by compromising servers and/or clients using cache poisoning, phishing, or other attacks that enable attackers to spoof a legitimate entity in the communication channel).

Mitigations

Phase: Architecture and Design

Explicitly require HTTPS or another mechanism that ensures that communication is encrypted [REF-1464].

Phase: Implementation

Avoid using "mixed content," i.e., serving a web page over HTTPS in which the page includes elements that use "http:" URLs [REF-1466] [REF-1467]. This is often done for images or other resources that do not seem to have privacy or security implications.

Phase: Implementation, Operation

Perform "HTTPS forcing," that is, redirecting HTTP requests to HTTPS.

Phase: Operation

If the product supports multiple protocols, ensure that encrypted protocols (such as HTTPS) are required, and remove any unencrypted protocols (such as HTTP).