CWE-298

Improper Validation of Certificate Expiration

Low Risk

Weakness Description

A certificate expiration is not validated or is incorrectly validated, so trust may be assigned to certificates that have been abandoned due to age.

When the expiration of a certificate is not taken into account, no trust has necessarily been conveyed through it. Therefore, the validity of the certificate cannot be verified and all benefit of the certificate is lost.

Potential Mitigations

Architecture and Design

Check for expired certificates and provide the user with adequate information about the nature of the problem and how to proceed.

Implementation

If certificate pinning is being used, ensure that all relevant properties of the certificate are fully validated before the certificate is pinned, including the expiration.

Common Consequences

IntegrityOther
Other

The data read from the system vouched for by the expired certificate may be flawed due to malicious spoofing.

AuthenticationOther
Other

Trust afforded to the system in question - based on the expired certificate - may allow for spoofing attacks.

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