CWE-835

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
Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

Description

The product contains an iteration or loop with an exit condition that cannot be reached, i.e., an infinite loop.

Top Monitored CVEs

CVE-2024-20353
HIGH KEV
8.6 70.7%
2024-04-24

Consequences

Availability — DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory), DoS: Amplification

An infinite loop will cause unexpected consumption of resources, such as CPU cycles or memory. The software's operation may slow down, or cause a long time to respond.

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.)