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Home > CWE List > CWE-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel (4.18)
ID
CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel

Weakness ID: 288
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 requires authentication, but the product has an alternate path or channel that does not require authentication. Diagram for CWE-288
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

Bypass Protection Mechanism

Scope: Access Control

Potential Mitigations
Phase(s) Mitigation

Architecture and Design
Funnel all access through a single choke point to simplify how users can access a resource. For every access, perform a check to determine if the user has permissions to access the resource.
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 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. 306 Missing Authentication for Critical Function
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. 425 Direct Request ('Forced Browsing')
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. 1299 Missing Protection Mechanism for Alternate Hardware Interface
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. 420 Unprotected Alternate Channel
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. 1010 Authenticate Actors
Relevant to the view "CISQ Data Protection Measures" (View-1340)
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. 284 Improper Access Control
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 COMMISSION: This weakness refers to an incorrect design related to an architectural security tactic.
Architecture and Design This is often seen in web applications that assume that access to a particular CGI program can only be obtained through a "front" screen, when the supporting programs are directly accessible. But this problem is not just in web apps.
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


Register SECURE_ME is located at address 0xF00. A mirror of this register called COPY_OF_SECURE_ME is at location 0x800F00. The register SECURE_ME is protected from malicious agents and only allows access to select, while COPY_OF_SECURE_ME is not.

Access control is implemented using an allowlist (as indicated by acl_oh_allowlist). The identity of the initiator of the transaction is indicated by the one hot input, incoming_id. This is checked against the acl_oh_allowlist (which contains a list of initiators that are allowed to access the asset).

Though this example is shown in Verilog, it will apply to VHDL as well.

(informative)
Example Language: Verilog
module foo_bar(data_out, data_in, incoming_id, address, clk, rst_n);
output [31:0] data_out;
input [31:0] data_in, incoming_id, address;
input clk, rst_n;
wire write_auth, addr_auth;
reg [31:0] data_out, acl_oh_allowlist, q;
assign write_auth = | (incoming_id & acl_oh_allowlist) ? 1 : 0;
always @*
acl_oh_allowlist <= 32'h8312;
assign addr_auth = (address == 32'hF00) ? 1: 0;
always @ (posedge clk or negedge rst_n)
if (!rst_n)
begin
q <= 32'h0;
data_out <= 32'h0;
end
else
begin
q <= (addr_auth & write_auth) ? data_in: q;
data_out <= q;
end
end
endmodule
(bad code)
Example Language: Verilog
assign addr_auth = (address == 32'hF00) ? 1: 0;

The bugged line of code is repeated in the Bad example above. Weakness arises from the fact that the SECURE_ME register can be modified by writing to the shadow register COPY_OF_SECURE_ME, the address of COPY_OF_SECURE_ME should also be included in the check. That buggy line of code should instead be replaced as shown in the Good Code Snippet below.

(good code)
Example Language: Verilog
assign addr_auth = (address == 32'hF00 || address == 32'h800F00) ? 1: 0;


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
Router allows remote attackers to read system logs without authentication by directly connecting to the login screen and typing certain control characters.
Attackers with physical access to the machine may bypass the password prompt by pressing the ESC (Escape) key.
OS allows local attackers to bypass the password protection of idled sessions via the programmer's switch or CMD-PWR keyboard sequence, which brings up a debugger that the attacker can use to disable the lock.
Direct request of installation file allows attacker to create administrator accounts.
Attackers may gain additional privileges by directly requesting the web management URL.
Bypass authentication via direct request to named pipe.
User can avoid lockouts by using an API instead of the GUI to conduct brute force password guessing.
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. 721 OWASP Top Ten 2007 Category A10 - Failure to Restrict URL Access
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 947 SFP Secondary Cluster: Authentication Bypass
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1353 OWASP Top Ten 2021 Category A07:2021 - Identification and Authentication Failures
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1364 ICS Communications: Zone Boundary Failures
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1396 Comprehensive Categorization: Access Control
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.
Notes

Relationship

overlaps Unprotected Alternate Channel
Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy Name Node ID Fit Mapped Node Name
PLOVER Authentication Bypass by Alternate Path/Channel
OWASP Top Ten 2007 A10 CWE More Specific Failure to Restrict URL Access
Content History
Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2006年07月19日
(CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日) 		PLOVER
Contributions
Contribution Date Contributor Organization
2024年09月29日
(CWE 4.16, 2024年11月19日) 		Abhi Balakrishnan
Contributed usability diagram concepts used by the CWE team
Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2024年11月19日
(CWE 4.16, 2024年11月19日) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Diagram
2023年10月26日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Demonstrative_Examples
2023年06月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes, Relationships
2023年04月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2022年10月13日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2021年10月28日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2021年07月20日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2020年12月10日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2020年08月20日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2020年02月24日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2017年11月08日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships
2017年05月03日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships
2014年07月30日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2012年10月30日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Potential_Mitigations
2012年05月11日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Observed_Examples, Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships
2011年06月01日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2011年03月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2008年11月24日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Observed_Examples
2008年09月08日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Modes_of_Introduction, Name, Relationships, Observed_Example, Relationship_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings, Type
Previous Entry Names
Change Date Previous Entry Name
2008年09月09日 Authentication Bypass by Alternate Path/Channel
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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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