CWE-1118: Insufficient Documentation of Error Handling Techniques
Learn about CWE-1118 (Insufficient Documentation of Error Handling Techniques), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Insufficient Documentation of Error Handling Techniques?
• Overview: Insufficient Documentation of Error Handling Techniques (CWE-1118) occurs when the documentation does not adequately describe how errors are handled in the software. This can include a lack of detail on error handling, exception processing, or similar mechanisms across different layers like modules, executables, or callable units.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by analyzing the software to discover unhandled or improperly managed errors, which could lead to unexpected behavior.
- Common attack patterns include triggering error conditions that have not been documented or anticipated, leading to information leaks or denial of service.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences include the possibility of errors being mishandled or ignored, leading to software crashes or unexpected behavior.
- Potential cascading effects could involve security mechanisms being bypassed or system integrity being compromised due to unanticipated error conditions.
- Business impact can include data breaches, loss of customer trust, and financial losses due to system downtime or data corruption.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes involve ensuring comprehensive documentation of all error handling and exception processing mechanisms within the codebase.
- Security best practices include maintaining up-to-date documentation that covers all layers of error handling, regularly reviewing and updating documentation as the code evolves.
- Recommended tools and frameworks are those that encourage or enforce documentation, such as static analysis tools with documentation checks or development frameworks that integrate documentation generation tools.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Not specified