CWE - CWE-353: Missing Support for Integrity Check (4.18)

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CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-353: Missing Support for Integrity Check

Weakness ID: 353

Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
Abstraction: Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.

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Description

The product uses a transmission protocol that does not include a mechanism for verifying the integrity of the data during transmission, such as a checksum.

Extended Description

If integrity check values or "checksums" are omitted from a protocol, there is no way of determining if data has been corrupted in transmission. The lack of checksum functionality in a protocol removes the first application-level check of data that can be used. The end-to-end philosophy of checks states that integrity checks should be performed at the lowest level that they can be completely implemented. Excluding further sanity checks and input validation performed by applications, the protocol's checksum is the most important level of checksum, since it can be performed more completely than at any previous level and takes into account entire messages, as opposed to single packets.

Common Consequences

Section HelpThis table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.

Impact	Details
Other	Scope: Integrity, Other Data that is parsed and used may be corrupted.
Hide Activities; Other	Scope: Non-Repudiation, Other Without a checksum it is impossible to determine if any changes have been made to the data after it was sent.

Potential Mitigations

Phase(s)	Mitigation
Architecture and Design	Add an appropriately sized checksum to the protocol, ensuring that data received may be simply validated before it is parsed and used.
Implementation	Ensure that the checksums present in the protocol design are properly implemented and added to each message before it is sent.

Relationships

Section Help This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.

Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
ChildOf	Class Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.	345	Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity
PeerOf	Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	354	Improper Validation of Integrity Check Value

Relevant to the view "Software Development" (View-699)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1214	Data Integrity Issues

Relevant to the view "Architectural Concepts" (View-1008)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1020	Verify Message Integrity

Modes Of Introduction

Section HelpThe different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.

Phase	Note
Architecture and Design	OMISSION: This weakness is caused by missing a security tactic during the architecture and design phase.
Implementation

Applicable Platforms

Section HelpThis listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.

Languages

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Likelihood Of Exploit

Medium

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

In this example, a request packet is received, and privileged information is sent to the requester:

(bad code)

Example Language: Java

while(true) {

DatagramPacket rp = new DatagramPacket(rData,rData.length);
outSock.receive(rp);
InetAddress IPAddress = rp.getAddress();
int port = rp.getPort();
out = secret.getBytes();
DatagramPacket sp =new DatagramPacket(out, out.length, IPAddress, port);
outSock.send(sp);

}

The response containing secret data has no integrity check associated with it, allowing an attacker to alter the message without detection.

Memberships

Section HelpThis MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	ViewView - a subset of CWE entries that provides a way of examining CWE content. The two main view structures are Slices (flat lists) and Graphs (containing relationships between entries).	884	CWE Cross-section
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	957	SFP Secondary Cluster: Protocol Error
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1354	OWASP Top Ten 2021 Category A08:2021 - Software and Data Integrity Failures
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1411	Comprehensive Categorization: Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage ALLOWED

(this CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)

Reason Acceptable-Use

Rationale

This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.

Comments

Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

Taxonomy Mappings

Mapped Taxonomy Name	Node ID	Fit
CLASP	Failure to add integrity check value
ISA/IEC 62443	Part 2-4	Req SP.03.03 RE(1)
ISA/IEC 62443	Part 2-4	Req SP.04.02 RE(1)
ISA/IEC 62443	Part 2-4	Req SP.11.06 RE(2)
ISA/IEC 62443	Part 3-3	Req SR 3.1
ISA/IEC 62443	Part 4-1	Req SD-1
ISA/IEC 62443	Part 4-2	Req CR 3.1

Related Attack Patterns

CAPEC-ID	Attack Pattern Name
CAPEC-13	Subverting Environment Variable Values
CAPEC-14	Client-side Injection-induced Buffer Overflow
CAPEC-389	Content Spoofing Via Application API Manipulation
CAPEC-39	Manipulating Opaque Client-based Data Tokens
CAPEC-665	Exploitation of Thunderbolt Protection Flaws
CAPEC-74	Manipulating State
CAPEC-75	Manipulating Writeable Configuration Files

References

[REF-18] Secure Software, Inc.. "The CLASP Application Security Process". 2005.
<https://cwe.mitre.org/documents/sources/TheCLASPApplicationSecurityProcess.pdf>. (URL validated: 2024年11月17日)

[REF-44] Michael Howard, David LeBlanc and John Viega. "24 Deadly Sins of Software Security". "Sin 15: Not Updating Easily." Page 231. McGraw-Hill. 2010.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)	CLASP
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)
Contributions
Contribution Date	Contributor	Organization
2023年04月25日	"Mapping CWE to 62443" Sub-Working Group	CWE-CAPEC ICS/OT SIG
2023年04月25日	Suggested mappings to ISA/IEC 62443.
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2023年06月29日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年06月29日	updated Mapping_Notes
2023年04月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年04月27日	updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2023年01月31日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年01月31日	updated Description
2021年10月28日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021年10月28日	updated Relationships
2021年07月20日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021年07月20日	updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2020年02月24日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020年02月24日	updated References, Relationships
2019年06月20日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2019年06月20日	updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2017年11月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2017年11月08日	updated Applicable_Platforms, Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships
2014年07月30日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2014年07月30日	updated Relationships
2012年10月30日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2012年10月30日	updated Demonstrative_Examples
2012年05月11日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2012年05月11日	updated References, Relationships
2011年06月01日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年06月01日	updated Common_Consequences, Demonstrative_Examples
2010年12月13日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2010年12月13日	updated Description, Name
2009年10月29日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2009年10月29日	updated Description, Other_Notes
2008年09月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2008年09月08日	updated Common_Consequences, Relationships, Other_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008年07月01日	Eric Dalci	Cigital
2008年07月01日	updated Time_of_Introduction
Previous Entry Names
Change Date	Previous Entry Name
2010年12月13日	Failure to Add Integrity Check Value

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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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