CWE-637: Unnecessary Complexity in Protection Mechanism (Not Using 'Economy of Mechanism')
Description
The product uses a more complex mechanism than necessary, which could lead to resultant weaknesses when the mechanism is not correctly understood, modeled, configured, implemented, or used.
Security mechanisms should be as simple as possible. Complex security mechanisms may engender partial implementations and compatibility problems, with resulting mismatches in assumptions and implemented security. A corollary of this principle is that data specifications should be as simple as possible, because complex data specifications result in complex validation code. Complex tasks and systems may also need to be guarded by complex security checks, so simple systems should be preferred.
- Abstraction
- ClassAn abstract weakness, independent of any specific language or technology.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Status
- Draft
Common consequences
- Other
Other
Potential mitigations
- Architecture and Design
Avoid complex security mechanisms when simpler ones would meet requirements. Avoid complex data models, and unnecessarily complex operations. Adopt architectures that provide guarantees, simplify understanding through elegance and abstraction, and that can be implemented similarly. Modularize, isolate and do not trust complex code, and apply other secure programming principles on these modules (e.g., least privilege) to mitigate vulnerabilities.
Related weaknesses
Parent weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it
CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.