COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONDraft

CWE-326

Inadequate Encryption Strength

The product stores or transmits sensitive data using an encryption scheme that is theoretically sound, but is not strong enough for the level of protection required.

Abstraction

Class

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product stores or transmits sensitive data using an encryption scheme that is theoretically sound, but is not strong enough for the level of protection required.

Extended description

A weak encryption scheme can be subjected to brute force attacks that have a reasonable chance of succeeding using current attack methods and resources.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

COMMISSION: This weakness refers to an incorrect design related to an architectural security tactic.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Bypass Protection MechanismRead Application Data

Affected security scopes: Access Control, Confidentiality

An attacker may be able to decrypt the data using brute force attacks.

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Architecture and Design

Architecture and design approach

Detail
Use an encryption scheme that is currently considered to be strong by experts in the field.

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.)