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Home > CWE List > CWE-628: Function Call with Incorrectly Specified Arguments (4.18)
ID
CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-628: Function Call with Incorrectly Specified Arguments

Weakness ID: 628
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 calls a function, procedure, or routine with arguments that are not correctly specified, leading to always-incorrect behavior and resultant weaknesses.
Extended Description

There are multiple ways in which this weakness can be introduced, including:

  • the wrong variable or reference;
  • an incorrect number of arguments;
  • incorrect order of arguments;
  • wrong type of arguments; or
  • wrong value.
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; Gain Privileges or Assume Identity

Scope: Other, Access Control

This weakness can cause unintended behavior and can lead to additional weaknesses such as allowing an attacker to gain unintended access to system resources.
Potential Mitigations
Phase(s) Mitigation

Build and Compilation
Once found, these issues are easy to fix. Use code inspection tools and relevant compiler features to identify potential violations. Pay special attention to code that is not likely to be exercised heavily during QA.

Architecture and Design
Make sure your API's are stable before you use them in production code.
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. 573 Improper Following of Specification by Caller
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. 683 Function Call With Incorrect Order of Arguments
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. 685 Function Call With Incorrect Number of Arguments
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. 686 Function Call With Incorrect Argument Type
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. 687 Function Call With Incorrectly Specified Argument Value
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. 688 Function Call With Incorrect Variable or Reference as Argument
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. 1006 Bad Coding Practices
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 PHP method authenticates a user given a username/password combination but is called with the parameters in reverse order.

(bad code)
Example Language: PHP
function authenticate($username, $password) {

// authenticate user
...
}

authenticate($_POST['password'], $_POST['username']);


Example 2


This Perl code intends to record whether a user authenticated successfully or not, and to exit if the user fails to authenticate. However, when it calls ReportAuth(), the third argument is specified as 0 instead of 1, so it does not exit.

(bad code)
Example Language: Perl
sub ReportAuth {
my ($username, $result, $fatal) = @_;
PrintLog("auth: username=%s, result=%d", $username, $result);
if (($result ne "success") && $fatal) {
die "Failed!\n";
}
}

sub PrivilegedFunc
{
my $result = CheckAuth($username);
ReportAuth($username, $result, 0);
DoReallyImportantStuff();
}


Example 3


In the following Java snippet, the accessGranted() method is accidentally called with the static ADMIN_ROLES array rather than the user roles.

(bad code)
Example Language: Java
private static final String[] ADMIN_ROLES = ...;
public boolean void accessGranted(String resource, String user) {
String[] userRoles = getUserRoles(user);
return accessGranted(resource, ADMIN_ROLES);
}

private boolean void accessGranted(String resource, String[] userRoles) {

// grant or deny access based on user roles
...
}


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
The method calls the functions with the wrong argument order, which allows remote attackers to bypass intended access restrictions.
Weakness Ordinalities
Ordinality Description
Primary
(where the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
This is usually primary to other weaknesses, but it can be resultant if the function's API or function prototype changes.
Detection Methods
Method Details

Other
Since these bugs typically introduce incorrect behavior that is obvious to users, they are found quickly, unless they occur in rarely-tested code paths. Managing the correct number of arguments can be made more difficult in cases where format strings are used, or when variable numbers of arguments are supported.
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. 736 CERT C Secure Coding Standard (2008) Chapter 3 - Declarations and Initialization (DCL)
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 737 CERT C Secure Coding Standard (2008) Chapter 4 - Expressions (EXP)
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 742 CERT C Secure Coding Standard (2008) Chapter 9 - Memory Management (MEM)
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. 998 SFP Secondary Cluster: Glitch in Computation
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1157 SEI CERT C Coding Standard - Guidelines 03. Expressions (EXP)
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1180 SEI CERT Perl Coding Standard - Guidelines 02. Declarations and Initialization (DCL)
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1181 SEI CERT Perl Coding Standard - Guidelines 03. Expressions (EXP)
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 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
CERT C Secure Coding DCL10-C Maintain the contract between the writer and caller of variadic functions
CERT C Secure Coding EXP37-C CWE More Abstract Call functions with the correct number and type of arguments
SEI CERT Perl Coding Standard DCL00-PL CWE More Abstract Do not use subroutine prototypes
SEI CERT Perl Coding Standard EXP33-PL Imprecise Do not invoke a function in a context for which it is not defined
Content History
Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2007年05月07日
(CWE Draft 6, 2007年05月07日) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2023年06月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
2023年04月27日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2021年03月15日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Detection_Factors, Relationships
2020年02月24日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2019年01月03日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2017年11月08日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, Taxonomy_Mappings
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 Common_Consequences, Demonstrative_Examples, 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06月21日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description
2010年02月16日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Detection_Factors
2009年10月29日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Detection_Factors, Other_Notes, Weakness_Ordinalities
2008年11月24日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008年09月08日 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Relationships, Other_Notes, Weakness_Ordinalities
Previous Entry Names
Change Date Previous Entry Name
2008年04月11日 Incorrectly Specified Arguments
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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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