COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONDraft

CWE-321

Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key

The product uses a hard-coded, unchangeable cryptographic key.

Abstraction

Variant

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

High

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product uses a hard-coded, unchangeable cryptographic key.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Bypass Protection MechanismGain Privileges or Assume IdentityRead Application Data

Affected security scopes: Access Control

If hard-coded cryptographic keys are used, it is almost certain that malicious users will gain access through the account in question. The use of a hard-coded cryptographic key significantly increases the possibility that encrypted data may be recovered.

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Architecture and Design

Architecture and design approach

Detail
Prevention schemes mirror that of hard-coded password storage.

Verification

How is it detected?

Automated Static Analysis

High
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)

MITRE diagram

Weakness relationships and flow

CWE-321 MITRE diagramı
CWE-321: Common Weakness Enumeration Entry CWE-321 · DayBreach Sözlük · DayBreach