COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONDraft

CWE-607

Public Static Final Field References Mutable Object

A public or protected static final field references a mutable object, which allows the object to be changed by malicious code, or accidentally from another package.

Abstraction

Variant

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

A public or protected static final field references a mutable object, which allows the object to be changed by malicious code, or accidentally from another package.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Modify Application Data

Affected security scopes: Integrity

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Implementation

Implementation-phase defence

Detail
Protect mutable objects by making them private. Restrict access to the getter and setter as well.

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.)