CWE-300 Detail

The product does not adequately verify the identity of actors at both ends of a communication channel, or does not adequately ensure the integrity of the channel, in a way that allows the channel to be accessed or influenced by an actor that is not an endpoint.

In order to establish secure communication between two parties, it is often important to adequately verify the identity of entities at each end of the communication channel. Inadequate or inconsistent verification may result in insufficient or incorrect identification of either communicating entity. This can have negative consequences such as misplaced trust in the entity at the other end of the channel. An attacker can leverage this by interposing between the communicating entities and masquerading as the original entity. In the absence of sufficient verification of identity, such an attacker can eavesdrop and potentially modify the communication between the original entities.

Modes Of Introduction

Architecture and Design : REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

Applicable Platforms

Language

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined)

Common Consequences

Observed Examples

Potential Mitigations

Phases : Implementation
Always fully authenticate both ends of any communications channel.
Phases : Architecture and Design
Adhere to the principle of complete mediation.
Phases : Implementation
A certificate binds an identity to a cryptographic key to authenticate a communicating party. Often, the certificate takes the encrypted form of the hash of the identity of the subject, the public key, and information such as time of issue or expiration using the issuer's private key. The certificate can be validated by deciphering the certificate with the issuer's public key. See also X.509 certificate signature chains and the PGP certification structure.

Detection Methods

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.)
Effectiveness : High

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Rationale : CWE-300 is commonly misused for vulnerabilities in which the prerequisites for exploitation require the adversary to be in a privileged "in-the-middle" position.
Comments : Consider root-cause weaknesses that allow adversary-in-the-middle attacks to happen, such as CWEs involving poor integrity protection.

Related Attack Patterns

Notes

The summary identifies multiple distinct possibilities, suggesting that this is a category that must be broken into more specific weaknesses.

References

REF-244

Computer Security: Art and Science
M. Bishop.

Submission

Modifications