CWE - CWE-546: Suspicious Comment (4.18)

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CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-546: Suspicious Comment

Weakness ID: 546

Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
Abstraction: 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.

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Description

The code contains comments that suggest the presence of bugs, incomplete functionality, or weaknesses.

Extended Description

Many suspicious comments, such as BUG, HACK, FIXME, LATER, LATER2, TODO, in the code indicate missing security functionality and checking. Others indicate code problems that programmers should fix, such as hard-coded variables, error handling, not using stored procedures, and performance issues.

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
Quality Degradation	Scope: Other Suspicious comments could be an indication that there are problems in the source code that may need to be fixed and is an indication of poor quality. This could lead to further bugs and the introduction of weaknesses.

Potential Mitigations

Phase(s)	Mitigation
Documentation	Remove comments that suggest the presence of bugs, incomplete functionality, or weaknesses, before deploying the application.

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.	1078	Inappropriate Source Code Style or Formatting
PeerOf	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.	615	Inclusion of Sensitive Information in Source Code Comments

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

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

The following excerpt demonstrates the use of a suspicious comment in an incomplete code block that may have security repercussions.

(bad code)

Example Language: Java

if (user == null) {

// TODO: Handle null user condition.

}

Weakness Ordinalities

Ordinality	Description
Indirect	(where the weakness is a quality issue that might indirectly make it easier to introduce security-relevant weaknesses or make them more difficult to detect)

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.	963	SFP Secondary Cluster: Exposed Data
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1412	Comprehensive Categorization: Poor Coding Practices

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 Variant 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.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)	Anonymous Tool Vendor (under NDA)
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)
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
2020年02月24日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020年02月24日	updated Applicable_Platforms, Relationships
2019年01月03日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2019年01月03日	updated Relationships, Weakness_Ordinalities
2017年11月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2017年11月08日	updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
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 Potential_Mitigations
2012年05月11日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2012年05月11日	updated Common_Consequences, Relationships
2011年06月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年06月27日	updated Common_Consequences
2011年06月01日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年06月01日	updated Common_Consequences
2010年06月21日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2010年06月21日	updated Demonstrative_Examples
2008年09月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2008年09月08日	updated Description, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008年07月01日	Eric Dalci	Cigital
2008年07月01日	updated Potential_Mitigations, Time_of_Introduction
2008年07月01日	Sean Eidemiller	Cigital
2008年07月01日	added/updated demonstrative examples

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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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