CWE-833

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
Deadlock

Description

The product contains multiple threads or executable segments that are waiting for each other to release a necessary lock, resulting in deadlock.

Consequences

Availability — DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Resource Consumption (Other), DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Each thread of execution will "hang" and prevent tasks from completing. In some cases, CPU consumption may occur if a lock check occurs in a tight loop.

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.)