CWE-299: Improper Check for Certificate Revocation
Description
The product does not check or incorrectly checks the revocation status of a certificate, which may cause it to use a certificate that has been compromised.
An improper check for certificate revocation is a far more serious flaw than related certificate failures. This is because the use of any revoked certificate is almost certainly malicious. The most common reason for certificate revocation is compromise of the system in question, with the result that no legitimate servers will be using a revoked certificate, unless they are sorely out of sync.
- Abstraction
- BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Medium
- Status
- Draft
Common consequences
- Access Control
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
Trust may be assigned to an entity who is not who it claims to be.
- IntegrityOther
Other
Data from an untrusted (and possibly malicious) source may be integrated.
- Confidentiality
Read Application Data
Data may be disclosed to an entity impersonating a trusted entity, resulting in information disclosure.
Potential mitigations
- Architecture and Design
Ensure that certificates are checked for revoked status.
- Implementation
If certificate pinning is being used, ensure that all relevant properties of the certificate are fully validated before the certificate is pinned, including the revoked status.
Related weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it
CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.