CWE

Common Weakness Enumeration

A community-developed list of SW & HW weaknesses that can become vulnerabilities
New to CWE? click here!
CWE Most Important Hardware Weaknesses
CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Weaknesses
Home > CWE List > CWE-588: Attempt to Access Child of a Non-structure Pointer (4.16)  
ID

CWE-588: Attempt to Access Child of a Non-structure Pointer

Weakness ID: 588
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.
View customized information:
For users who are interested in more notional aspects of a weakness. Example: educators, technical writers, and project/program managers. For users who are concerned with the practical application and details about the nature of a weakness and how to prevent it from happening. Example: tool developers, security researchers, pen-testers, incident response analysts. For users who are mapping an issue to CWE/CAPEC IDs, i.e., finding the most appropriate CWE for a specific issue (e.g., a CVE record). Example: tool developers, security researchers. For users who wish to see all available information for the CWE/CAPEC entry. For users who want to customize what details are displayed.
×

Edit Custom Filter


+ Description
Casting a non-structure type to a structure type and accessing a field can lead to memory access errors or data corruption.
+ 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.
Scope Impact Likelihood
Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Memory

Adjacent variables in memory may be corrupted by assignments performed on fields after the cast.
Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Execution may end due to a memory access error.
+ Potential Mitigations

Phase: Requirements

The choice could be made to use a language that is not susceptible to these issues.

Phase: Implementation

Review of type casting operations can identify locations where incompatible types are cast.
+ 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" (CWE-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. 704 Incorrect Type Conversion or Cast
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. 758 Reliance on Undefined, Unspecified, or Implementation-Defined Behavior
+ 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
+ Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

The following example demonstrates the weakness.

(bad code)
Example Language: C 
struct foo
{
int i;
}
...
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
*foo = (struct foo *)main;
foo->i = 2;
return foo->i;
}

+ Observed Examples
Reference Description
JSON decoder accesses a C union using an invalid offset to an object
+ 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. 971 SFP Secondary Cluster: Faulty Pointer Use
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1416 Comprehensive Categorization: Resource Lifecycle 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 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.
+ Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy Name Node ID Fit Mapped Node Name
Software Fault Patterns SFP7 Faulty Pointer Use
+ Content History
+ Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2006-12-15
(CWE Draft 5, 2006-12-15) 		CWE Community
Submitted by members of the CWE community to extend early CWE versions
+ Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2008-07-01 Eric Dalci Cigital
updated Time_of_Introduction
2008-09-08 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Other_Notes
2009-03-10 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2009-07-27 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences, Other_Notes
2011-06-01 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2012-05-11 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2012-10-30 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Potential_Mitigations
2014-07-30 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2017-11-08 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Demonstrative_Examples
2023-04-27 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Time_of_Introduction
2023-06-29 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
2023-10-26 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Observed_Examples
Page Last Updated: November 19, 2024
 

Use of the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE™) and the associated references from this website are subject to the Terms of Use. CWE is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and managed by the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute (HSSEDI) which is operated by The MITRE Corporation (MITRE). Copyright © 2006–2024, The MITRE Corporation. CWE, CWSS, CWRAF, and the CWE logo are trademarks of The MITRE Corporation.