CWE-1062: Parent Class with References to Child Class
Learn about CWE-1062 (Parent Class with References to Child Class), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Parent Class with References to Child Class?
• Overview: This vulnerability occurs when a parent class in object-oriented programming contains references to its child class, including its methods or members, leading to tight coupling that can cause reliability issues. This design flaw may introduce vulnerabilities if the code is accessible to attackers.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by inducing unexpected behavior or failures in the software when they gain access to code paths involving the parent-child class references.
- Common attack patterns include manipulating the state or behavior of the child class indirectly through the parent class, potentially causing the application to behave unpredictably.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences include application crashes or unexpected behavior, which can be leveraged for denial of service attacks.
- Potential cascading effects involve further destabilization of the application, leading to security measures being bypassed or sensitive information being exposed.
- Business impact may include loss of customer trust, potential data breaches, and increased maintenance costs to address the reliability and security issues.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes include removing or minimizing dependencies where the parent class references the child class, using interfaces or abstract classes to decouple functionality.
- Security best practices involve adhering to the principles of encapsulation and modularity, ensuring that classes are self-contained and do not have unnecessary dependencies.
- Recommended tools and frameworks include using static analysis tools to detect and refactor tight coupling issues and employing design patterns like dependency injection to maintain loose coupling between classes.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Not specified