CWE-1177: Use of Prohibited Code
Description
The product uses a function, library, or third party component that has been explicitly prohibited, whether by the developer or the customer.
The developer - or customers - may wish to restrict or eliminate use of a function, library, or third party component for any number of reasons, including real or suspected vulnerabilities; difficulty to use securely; export controls or license requirements; obsolete or poorly-maintained code; internal code being scheduled for deprecation; etc. To reduce risk of vulnerabilities, the developer might maintain a list of banned functions that programmers must avoid using because the functions are difficult or impossible to use securely. This issue can also make the product more costly and difficult to maintain.
- Abstraction
- ClassAn abstract weakness, independent of any specific language or technology.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Status
- Incomplete
Common consequences
- Other
Reduce Maintainability
Potential mitigations
- Build and CompilationImplementation
Identify a list of prohibited API functions and prohibit developers from using these functions, providing safer alternatives. In some cases, automatic code analysis tools or the compiler can be instructed to spot use of prohibited functions, such as the banned.h include file from Microsoft's SDL.
Related weaknesses
Parent weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it
CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.