CWE-412: Unrestricted Externally Accessible Lock
Description
The product properly checks for the existence of a lock, but the lock can be externally controlled or influenced by an actor that is outside of the intended sphere of control.
This prevents the product from acting on associated resources or performing other behaviors that are controlled by the presence of the lock. Relevant locks might include an exclusive lock or mutex, or modifying a shared resource that is treated as a lock. If the lock can be held for an indefinite period of time, then the denial of service could be permanent.
- Abstraction
- BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Status
- Incomplete
Common consequences
- Availability
DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
When an attacker can control a lock, the program may wait indefinitely until the attacker releases the lock, causing a denial of service to other users of the program. This is especially problematic if there is a blocking operation on the lock.
Potential mitigations
- Architecture and DesignImplementation
Use any access control that is offered by the functionality that is offering the lock.
- Architecture and DesignImplementation
Use unpredictable names or identifiers for the locks. This might not always be possible or feasible.
- Architecture and Design
Consider modifying your code to use non-blocking synchronization methods.