CWE-1116: Inaccurate Source Code Comments
Description
The source code contains comments that do not accurately describe or explain aspects of the portion of the code with which the comment is associated.
- Abstraction
- BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Status
- Incomplete
Common consequences
- Other
Reduce Maintainability
This issue makes it more difficult to maintain the product, which indirectly affects security by making it more difficult or time-consuming to find and/or fix vulnerabilities. It also might make it easier to introduce vulnerabilities.
- Other
Increase Analytical Complexity
When a comment does not accurately reflect the associated code elements, this can introduce confusion to a reviewer (due to inconsistencies) or make it more difficult and less efficient to validate that the code is implementing the intended behavior correctly.
Potential mitigations
- Implementation
Verify that each comment accurately reflects what is intended to happen during execution of the code.
Related weaknesses
Parent weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it
CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.