CWE-454

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 Draft 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
External Initialization of Trusted Variables or Data Stores

Description

The product initializes critical internal variables or data stores using inputs that can be modified by untrusted actors.

A product system should be reluctant to trust variables that have been initialized outside of its trust boundary, especially if they are initialized by users. The variables may have been initialized incorrectly. If an attacker can initialize the variable, then they can influence what the vulnerable system will do.

Consequences

Integrity — Modify Application Data

An attacker could gain access to and modify sensitive data or system information.

Mitigations

Phase: Implementation

A product system should be reluctant to trust variables that have been initialized outside of its trust boundary. Ensure adequate checking (e.g. input validation) is performed when relying on input from outside a trust boundary.

Phase: Architecture and Design

Avoid any external control of variables. If necessary, restrict the variables that can be modified using an allowlist, and use a different namespace or naming convention if possible.

Detection

Automated Static Analysis

Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)