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Home > CWE List > CWE-396: Declaration of Catch for Generic Exception (4.18)
ID
CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-396: Declaration of Catch for Generic Exception

Weakness ID: 396
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
Catching overly broad exceptions promotes complex error handling code that is more likely to contain security vulnerabilities.
Extended Description
Multiple catch blocks can get ugly and repetitive, but "condensing" catch blocks by catching a high-level class like Exception can obscure exceptions that deserve special treatment or that should not be caught at this point in the program. Catching an overly broad exception essentially defeats the purpose of a language's typed exceptions, and can become particularly dangerous if the program grows and begins to throw new types of exceptions. The new exception types will not receive any attention.
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

Hide Activities

Scope: Non-Repudiation, Other

A generic exception can hide details about unexpected adversary activities by making it difficult to properly troubleshoot error conditions during execution.
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. 221 Information Loss or Omission
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. 705 Incorrect Control Flow Scoping
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. 755 Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions
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. 389 Error Conditions, Return Values, Status Codes
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
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

C++ (Undetermined Prevalence)

Java (Undetermined Prevalence)

C# (Undetermined Prevalence)

Python (Undetermined Prevalence)

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1


The following code excerpt handles three types of exceptions in an identical fashion.

(good code)
Example Language: Java
try {
doExchange();
}
catch (IOException e) {
logger.error("doExchange failed", e);
}
catch (InvocationTargetException e) {

logger.error("doExchange failed", e);
}
catch (SQLException e) {

logger.error("doExchange failed", e);
}

At first blush, it may seem preferable to deal with these exceptions in a single catch block, as follows:

(bad code)
Example Language: Java
try {
doExchange();
}
catch (Exception e) {
logger.error("doExchange failed", e);
}

However, if doExchange() is modified to throw a new type of exception that should be handled in some different kind of way, the broad catch block will prevent the compiler from pointing out the situation. Further, the new catch block will now also handle exceptions derived from RuntimeException such as ClassCastException, and NullPointerException, which is not the programmer's intent.



Detection Methods
Method Details

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
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. 388 7PK - Errors
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 960 SFP Secondary Cluster: Ambiguous Exception Type
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1129 CISQ Quality Measures (2016) - Reliability
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1131 CISQ Quality Measures (2016) - Security
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1410 Comprehensive Categorization: Insufficient Control Flow Management
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 Mapped Node Name
7 Pernicious Kingdoms Overly-Broad Catch Block
Software Fault Patterns SFP5 Ambiguous Exception Type
OMG ASCSM ASCSM-CWE-396
OMG ASCRM ASCRM-CWE-396
References
[REF-6] Katrina Tsipenyuk, Brian Chess and Gary McGraw. "Seven Pernicious Kingdoms: A Taxonomy of Software Security Errors". NIST Workshop on Software Security Assurance Tools Techniques and Metrics. NIST. 2005年11月07日.
<https://samate.nist.gov/SSATTM_Content/papers/Seven%20Pernicious%20Kingdoms%20-%20Taxonomy%20of%20Sw%20Security%20Errors%20-%20Tsipenyuk%20-%20Chess%20-%20McGraw.pdf>.
[REF-44] Michael Howard, David LeBlanc and John Viega. "24 Deadly Sins of Software Security". "Sin 9: Catching Exceptions." Page 157. McGraw-Hill. 2010.
[REF-961] Object Management Group (OMG). "Automated Source Code Reliability Measure (ASCRM)". ASCRM-CWE-396. 2016-01.
<http://www.omg.org/spec/ASCRM/1.0/>.
[REF-962] Object Management Group (OMG). "Automated Source Code Security Measure (ASCSM)". ASCSM-CWE-396. 2016-01.
<http://www.omg.org/spec/ASCSM/1.0/>.
Content History
Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2006年07月19日
(CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日) 		7 Pernicious Kingdoms
Contributions
Contribution Date Contributor Organization
2023年03月06日 Drew Buttner MITRE
Suggested additional Applicable_Platforms and modification to extended description.
Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2025年04月03日
(CWE 4.17, 2025年04月03日) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences, Demonstrative_Examples
2023年06月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
2023年04月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, Description, Detection_Factors, Relationships, Time_of_Introduction
2020年02月24日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References
2019年01月03日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2014年07月30日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2012年05月11日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References, Relationships
2011年06月01日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2009年10月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Other_Notes
2009年05月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Demonstrative_Examples
2009年03月10日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2008年10月14日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms
2008年09月24日 CWE Content Team MITRE
Removed C from Applicable_Platforms
2008年09月08日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, 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 Overly-Broad Catch Block
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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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