CWE-460: Improper Cleanup on Thrown Exception
Description
The product does not clean up its state or incorrectly cleans up its state when an exception is thrown, leading to unexpected state or control flow.
Often, when functions or loops become complicated, some level of resource cleanup is needed throughout execution. Exceptions can disturb the flow of the code and prevent the necessary cleanup from happening.
- Abstraction
- BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Medium
- Status
- Draft
Common consequences
- Other
Varies by Context
The code could be left in a bad state.
Potential mitigations
- Implementation
If one breaks from a loop or function by throwing an exception, make sure that cleanup happens or that you should exit the program. Use throwing exceptions sparsely.
Related weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it
CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.