CWE-580

Variant 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
clone() Method Without super.clone()

Description

The product contains a clone() method that does not call super.clone() to obtain the new object.

All implementations of clone() should obtain the new object by calling super.clone(). If a class does not follow this convention, a subclass's clone() method will return an object of the wrong type.

Consequences

Integrity, Other — Unexpected State, Quality Degradation

Mitigations

Phase: Implementation

Call super.clone() within your clone() method, when obtaining a new object.

Phase: Implementation

In some cases, you can eliminate the clone method altogether and use copy constructors.

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.)