CWE-749—Exposed Dangerous Method or Function

Weakness Name

Exposed Dangerous Method or Function

Description

The product provides an Applications Programming Interface (API) or similar interface for interaction with external actors, but the interface includes a dangerous method or function that is not properly restricted.

This weakness can lead to a wide variety of resultant weaknesses, depending on the behavior of the exposed method. It can apply to any number of technologies and approaches, such as ActiveX controls, Java functions, IOCTLs, and so on. The exposure can occur in a few different ways:

Common Consequences

Scope:

Integrity, Confidentiality, Availability, Access Control, Other

Impact:

Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Read Application Data, Modify Application Data, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands, Other

Notes:

Exposing critical functionality essentially provides an attacker with the privilege level of the exposed functionality. This could result in the modification or exposure of sensitive data or possibly even execution of arbitrary code.

Related Weaknesses

• CWE-284Improper Access Control

Related Alerts

• Dangerous JS FunctionsLow