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Home > CWE List > CWE-436: Interpretation Conflict (4.18)
ID
CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-436: Interpretation Conflict

Weakness ID: 436
Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review (with careful review of mapping notes)
Abstraction: 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.
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Description
Product A handles inputs or steps differently than Product B, which causes A to perform incorrect actions based on its perception of B's state.
Extended Description
This is generally found in proxies, firewalls, anti-virus software, and other intermediary devices that monitor, allow, deny, or modify traffic based on how the client or server is expected to behave.
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

Unexpected State; Varies by Context

Scope: Integrity, Other

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 Pillar Pillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things. 435 Improper Interaction Between Multiple Correctly-Behaving Entities
ParentOf Variant Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 86 Improper Neutralization of Invalid Characters in Identifiers in Web Pages
ParentOf Variant Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 113 Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences in HTTP Headers ('HTTP Request/Response Splitting')
ParentOf 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. 115 Misinterpretation of Input
ParentOf 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. 437 Incomplete Model of Endpoint Features
ParentOf 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. 444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')
ParentOf Variant Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 626 Null Byte Interaction Error (Poison Null Byte)
ParentOf Variant Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 650 Trusting HTTP Permission Methods on the Server Side
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. 351 Insufficient Type Distinction
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. 434 Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
Relevant to the view "Weaknesses for Simplified Mapping of Published Vulnerabilities" (View-1003)
Nature Type ID Name
MemberOf View View - 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). 1003 Weaknesses for Simplified Mapping of Published Vulnerabilities
ParentOf 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. 444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')
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
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)

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1


The paper "Insertion, Evasion, and Denial of Service: Eluding Network Intrusion Detection" [REF-428] shows that OSes varied widely in how they manage unusual packets, which made it difficult or impossible for intrusion detection systems to properly detect certain attacker manipulations that took advantage of these OS differences.



Example 2


Null characters have different interpretations in Perl and C, which have security consequences when Perl invokes C functions. Similar problems have been reported in ASP [REF-429] and PHP.



Selected Observed Examples

Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.

Reference Description
Bypass filters or poison web cache using requests with multiple Content-Length headers, a non-standard behavior.
Anti-virus product allows bypass via Content-Type and Content-Disposition headers that are mixed case, which are still processed by some clients.
FTP clients sending a command with "PASV" in the argument can cause firewalls to misinterpret the server's error as a valid response, allowing filter bypass.
FTP clients sending a command with "PASV" in the argument can cause firewalls to misinterpret the server's error as a valid response, allowing filter bypass.
Virus product bypass with spaces between MIME header fields and the ":" separator, a non-standard message that is accepted by some clients.
AV product detection bypass using inconsistency manipulation (file extension in MIME Content-Type vs. Content-Disposition field).
CMS system allows uploads of files with GIF/JPG extensions, but if they contain HTML, Internet Explorer renders them as HTML instead of images.
Interpretation conflict allows XSS via invalid "<" when a ">" is expected, which is treated as ">" by many web browsers.
Interpretation conflict (non-standard behavior) enables XSS because browser ignores invalid characters in the middle of tags.
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 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. 1398 Comprehensive Categorization: Component Interaction
Vulnerability Mapping Notes
Usage ALLOWED-WITH-REVIEW
(this CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review)
Reason Abstraction

Rationale

This CWE entry is a Class and might have Base-level children that would be more appropriate

Comments

Examine children of this entry to see if there is a better fit
Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy Name Node ID Fit Mapped Node Name
PLOVER Multiple Interpretation Error (MIE)
WASC 27 HTTP Response Smuggling
References
[REF-427] Steve Christey. "On Interpretation Conflict Vulnerabilities". Bugtraq. 2005年11月03日.
<https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2005/Nov/30>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)
[REF-428] Thomas H. Ptacek and Timothy N. Newsham. "Insertion, Evasion, and Denial of Service: Eluding Network Intrusion Detection". 1998-01.
<https://insecure.org/stf/secnet_ids/secnet_ids.pdf>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)
[REF-429] Brett Moore. "0x00 vs ASP file upload scripts". 2004年07月13日.
<http://www.security-assessment.com/Whitepapers/0x00_vs_ASP_File_Uploads.pdf>.
[REF-431] David F. Skoll. "Re: Corsaire Security Advisory - Multiple vendor MIME RFC2047 encoding". Bugtraq. 2004年09月15日.
<https://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=109525864717484&w=2>.
[REF-514] Rain Forest Puppy. "Perl CGI problems". Phrack. 1999年09月09日.
<https://phrack.org/issues/55/7>. (URL validated: 2025年07月24日)
Content History
Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2006年07月19日
(CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日) 		PLOVER
Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2025年09月09日
(CWE 4.18, 2025年09月09日) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References
2023年06月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
2023年04月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References, Relationships
2022年06月28日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2022年04月28日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2020年08月20日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2020年02月24日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2019年06月20日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Type
2018年03月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References
2017年11月08日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Demonstrative_Examples, Observed_Examples, References, Relationships
2017年01月19日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2015年12月07日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2014年07月30日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2014年06月23日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, Description, Observed_Examples, Other_Notes, References
2012年05月11日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2011年06月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2011年06月01日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2010年04月05日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2010年02月16日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2009年10月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2009年05月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2008年10月14日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description
2008年09月08日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Other_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008年07月01日 Eric Dalci Cigital
updated Time_of_Introduction
Previous Entry Names
Change Date Previous Entry Name
2008年04月11日 Multiple Interpretation Error (MIE)
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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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