CWE-642
External Control of Critical State Data
Extended description
If an attacker can modify the state information without detection, then it could be used to perform unauthorized actions or access unexpected resources, since the application programmer does not expect that the state can be changed. State information can be stored in various locations such as a cookie, in a hidden web form field, input parameter or argument, an environment variable, a database record, within a settings file, etc. All of these locations have the potential to be modified by an attacker. When this state information is used to control security or determine resource usage, then it may create a vulnerability. For example, an application may perform authentication, then save the state in an "authenticated=true" cookie. An attacker may simply create this cookie in order to bypass the authentication.
Common consequences3
- Access ControlBypass Protection MechanismGain Privileges or Assume Identity
An attacker could potentially modify the state in malicious ways. If the state is related to the privileges or level of authentication that the user has, then state modification might allow the user to bypass authentication or elevate privileges.
- ConfidentialityRead Application Data
The state variables may contain sensitive information that should not be known by the client.
- AvailabilityDoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
By modifying state variables, the attacker could violate the application's expectations for the contents of the state, leading to a denial of service due to an unexpected error condition.
Potential mitigations6
- Architecture and Design
Understand all the potential locations that are accessible to attackers. For example, some programmers assume that cookies and hidden form fields cannot be modified by an attacker, or they may not consider that environment variables can be modified before a privileged program is invoked.
- Architecture and Design
Store state information and sensitive data on the server side only. Ensure that the system definitively and unambiguously keeps track of its own state and user state and has rules defined for legitimate state transitions. Do not allow any application user to affect state directly in any way other than through legitimate actions leading to state transitions. If information must be stored on the client, do not do so without encryption and integrity checking, or otherwise having a mechanism on the server side to catch tampering. Use a message authentication code (MAC) algorithm, such as Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC) [REF-529]. Apply this against the state or sensitive data that has to be exposed, which can guarantee the integrity of the data - i.e., that the data has not been modified. Ensure that a strong hash function is used (CWE-328).
- Architecture and Design
Store state information on the server side only. Ensure that the system definitively and unambiguously keeps track of its own state and user state and has rules defined for legitimate state transitions. Do not allow any application user to affect state directly in any way other than through legitimate actions leading to state transitions.
- Architecture and Design
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid [REF-1482]. With a stateless protocol such as HTTP, use some frameworks can maintain the state for you. Examples include ASP.NET View State and the OWASP ESAPI Session Management feature. Be careful of language features that provide state support, since these might be provided as a convenience to the programmer and may not be considering security.
- Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
- OperationImplementation
When using PHP, configure the application so that it does not use register_globals. During implementation, develop the application so that it does not rely on this feature, but be wary of implementing a register_globals emulation that is subject to weaknesses such as CWE-95, CWE-621, and similar issues.
Relationships1
- ChildOfCWE-668
CVEs referencing this CWE17
| CVE | Description | Severity | EPSS | Flags | Modified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2019-9496 | An invalid authentication sequence could result in the hostapd process terminating due to missing state validation steps when processing the SAE confirm message when in hostapd/AP mode. All version of hostapd with SAE support are vulnerable. An attacker may force the hostapd process to terminate, performing a denial of service attack. Both hostapd with SAE support and wpa_supplicant with SAE support prior to and including version 2.7 are affected. | NONE | 5.22%p91 | 2024-11-21 | |
| CVE-2026-29146 | Padding Oracle vulnerability in Apache Tomcat's EncryptInterceptor with default configuration. This issue affects Apache Tomcat: from 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.18, from 10.0.0-M1 through 10.1.52, from 9.0.13 through 9..115, from 8.5.38 through 8.5.100, from 7.0.100 through 7.0.109. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 11.0.19, 10.1.53 and 9.0.116, which fixes the issue. | HIGH7.5 | 3.65%p88 | 2026-04-15 | |
| CVE-2018-15382 | A vulnerability in Cisco HyperFlex Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to generate valid, signed session tokens. The vulnerability is due to a static signing key that is present in all Cisco HyperFlex systems. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by accessing the static signing key from one HyperFlex system and using it to generate valid, signed session tokens for another HyperFlex system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to access the HyperFlex Web UI of a system for which they are not authorized. | NONE | 1.28%p66 | 2024-11-26 | |
| CVE-2017-0928 | html-janitor node module suffers from an External Control of Critical State Data vulnerability via user-control of the '_sanitized' variable causing sanitization to be bypassed. | MEDIUM6.1 | 1.04%p59 | 2024-11-21 | |
| CVE-2020-27872 | This vulnerability allows network-adjacent attackers to bypass authentication on affected installations of NETGEAR R7450 1.2.0.62_1.0.1 routers. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the mini_httpd service, which listens on TCP port 80 by default. The issue results from improper state tracking in the password recovery process. An attacker can leverage this in conjunction with other vulnerabilities to execute code in the context of root. Was ZDI-CAN-11365. | HIGH8.8 | 0.90%p55 | 2024-11-21 | |
| CVE-2023-0575 | External Control of Critical State Data, Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in YugaByte, Inc. Yugabyte DB on Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS (DevopsBase.Java:execCommand, TableManager.Java:runCommand modules) allows API Manipulation, Privilege Abuse. This vulnerability is associated with program files backup.Py. This issue affects Yugabyte DB: Lesser then 2.2.0.0 | CRITICAL9.8 | 0.78%p51 | 2025-03-24 | |
| CVE-2022-32859 | A logic issue was addressed with improved state management. This issue is fixed in iOS 16. Deleted contacts may still appear in spotlight search results. | MEDIUM5.3 | 0.53%p41 | 2025-05-06 | |
| CVE-2025-49090 | The Matrix specification before 1.16 (i.e., with a room version before 12 and State Resolution before 2.1) has deficient state resolution. | HIGH7.1 | 0.41%p33 | 2026-04-15 | |
| CVE-2024-8754 | An issue has been discovered in GitLab EE/CE affecting all versions from 16.9.7 prior to 17.1.7, 17.2 prior to 17.2.5, and 17.3 prior to 17.3.2. An improper input validation error allows attacker to squat on accounts via linking arbitrary unclaimed provider identities when JWT authentication is configured. | HIGH8.1 | 0.40%p32 | 2024-09-17 | |
| CVE-2024-58265 | The snow crate before 0.9.5 for Rust, when stateful TransportState is used, allows incrementing a nonce and thereby denying message delivery. | MEDIUM4.3 | 0.37%p29 | 2025-08-07 | |
| CVE-2020-26186 | Dell Inspiron 5675 BIOS versions prior to 1.4.1 contain a UEFI BIOS RuntimeServices overwrite vulnerability. A local attacker with access to system memory may exploit this vulnerability by overwriting the RuntimeServices structure to execute arbitrary code in System Management Mode (SMM). | MEDIUM6.8 | 0.36%p28 | 2024-11-21 | |
| CVE-2024-22387 | External Control of Critical State Data (CWE-642) in the Controller 6000 and Controller 7000 diagnostic web interface allows an authenticated user to modify device I/O connections leading to unexpected behavior that in some circumstances could compromise site physical security controls. Gallagher recommend the diagnostic web page is not enabled (default is off) unless advised by Gallagher Technical support. This interface is intended only for diagnostic purposes. This issue affects: Gallagher Controller 6000 and 7000 9.10 prior to vCR9.10.240520a (distributed in 9.10.1268(MR1)), 9.00 prior to vCR9.00.240521a (distributed in 9.00.1990(MR3)), 8.90 prior to vCR8.90.240520a (distributed in 8.90.1947 (MR4)), 8.80 prior to vCR8.80.240520a (distributed in 8.80.1726 (MR5)), 8.70 prior to vCR8.70.240520a (distributed in 8.70.2824 (MR7)), all versions of 8.60 and prior. | MEDIUM6.8 | 0.29%p20 | 2026-04-15 | |
| CVE-2020-1976 | A denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect software running on Mac OS allows authenticated local users to cause the Mac OS kernel to hang or crash. This issue affects GlobalProtect 5.0.5 and earlier versions of GlobalProtect 5.0 on Mac OS. | MEDIUM5.5 | 0.28%p20 | 2024-11-21 | |
| CVE-2022-22154 | In a Junos Fusion scenario an External Control of Critical State Data vulnerability in the Satellite Device (SD) control state machine of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an attacker who is able to make physical changes to the cabling of the device to cause a denial of service (DoS). An SD can get rebooted and subsequently controlled by an Aggregation Device (AD) which does not belong to the original Fusion setup and is just connected to an extended port of the SD. To carry out this attack the attacker needs to have physical access to the cabling between the SD and the original AD. This issue affects: Juniper Networks Junos OS 16.1R1 and later versions prior to 18.4R3-S10; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R3-S7; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R3-S4. This issue does not affect Juniper Networks Junos OS versions prior to 16.1R1. | MEDIUM6.8 | 0.25%p16 | 2024-11-21 | |
| CVE-2025-54566 | hw/pci/pcie_sriov.c in QEMU through 10.0.3 has a migration state inconsistency, a related issue to CVE-2024-26327. | MEDIUM5.4 | 0.23%p14 | 2025-12-16 | |
| CVE-2025-26787 | An error in the SignServer container startup logic was found in Keyfactor SignServer versions prior to 7.2. The Admin CLI command used to configure Certificate access to the initial startup of the container sets a property of "allowany" to allow any user with a valid and trusted client auth certificate to connect. Admins can then set more restricted access to specific certificates. A logic error caused this admin CLI command to be run on each restart of the container instead of only the first startup as intended resetting the configuration to "allowany". | MEDIUM4.7 | 0.13%p3 | 2026-01-05 | |
| CVE-2026-35659 | OpenClaw before 2026.3.22 contains a service discovery vulnerability where TXT metadata from Bonjour and DNS-SD could influence CLI routing even when actual service resolution failed. Attackers can exploit unresolved hints to steer routing decisions to unintended targets by providing malicious discovery metadata. | MEDIUM6.3 | 0.12%p2 | 2026-04-13 |