CWE-1119: Excessive Use of Unconditional Branching
Learn about CWE-1119 (Excessive Use of Unconditional Branching), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Excessive Use of Unconditional Branching?
• Overview: Excessive Use of Unconditional Branching (CWE-1119) refers to the overuse of non-conditional control flow statements like "goto" in code, which can make the codebase difficult to read, understand, and maintain. This complexity can lead to errors and vulnerabilities being overlooked.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by inserting malicious code into convoluted control flows where they are less likely to be detected.
- Common attack patterns include hiding malicious logic in hard-to-trace code paths or exploiting logical errors introduced by complex control flows.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences include the introduction of logical errors and potential security flaws that are difficult to detect and fix.
- Potential cascading effects include increased likelihood of future vulnerabilities due to the difficulty in understanding and maintaining the code.
- Business impact can include increased maintenance costs, longer time to resolve security issues, and potentially higher risk of data breaches.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes include refactoring code to minimize or eliminate the use of "goto" and similar unconditional branching constructs.
- Security best practices involve using structured programming techniques and ensuring code is modular and easy to follow.
- Recommended tools and frameworks include static analysis tools that can detect excessive use of unconditional branching and provide suggestions for refactoring.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Not specified