COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONIncomplete

CWE-940

Improper Verification of Source of a Communication Channel

The product establishes a communication channel to handle an incoming request that has been initiated by an actor, but it does not properly verify that the request is coming from the expected origin.

Abstraction

Base

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product establishes a communication channel to handle an incoming request that has been initiated by an actor, but it does not properly verify that the request is coming from the expected origin.

Extended description

When an attacker can successfully establish a communication channel from an untrusted origin, the attacker may be able to gain privileges and access unexpected functionality.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

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

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Gain Privileges or Assume IdentityVaries by ContextBypass Protection Mechanism

Affected security scopes: Access Control, Other

An attacker can access any functionality that is inadvertently accessible to the source.

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Architecture and Design

Architecture and design approach

Detail
Use a mechanism that can validate the identity of the source, such as a certificate, and validate the integrity of data to ensure that it cannot be modified in transit using an Adversary-in-the-Middle (AITM) attack. When designing functionality of actions in the URL scheme, consider whether the action should be accessible to all mobile applications, or if an allowlist of applications to interface with is appropriate.