Common Weakness Enumeration

Conceptual Operational Mapping Friendly Select All

Reset Clear Submit Cancel

The Android application uses a Broadcast Receiver that receives an Intent but does not properly verify that the Intent came from an authorized source.

Certain types of Intents, identified by action string, can only be broadcast by the operating system itself, not by third-party applications. However, when an application registers to receive these implicit system intents, it is also registered to receive any explicit intents. While a malicious application cannot send an implicit system intent, it can send an explicit intent to the target application, which may assume that any received intent is a valid implicit system intent and not an explicit intent from another application. This may lead to unintended behavior.

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
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity	Scope: Integrity Another application can impersonate the operating system and cause the software to perform an unintended action.

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

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.

Example 1

The following example demonstrates the weakness.

The ShutdownReceiver class will handle the intent:

Because the method does not confirm that the intent action is the expected system intent, any received intent will trigger the shutdown procedure, as shown here:

An attacker can use this behavior to cause a denial of service.

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

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.