CWE-331

Insufficient Entropy

Weakness Description

The product uses an algorithm or scheme that produces insufficient entropy, leaving patterns or clusters of values that are more likely to occur than others.

Potential Mitigations

Implementation

Determine the necessary entropy to adequately provide for randomness and predictability. This can be achieved by increasing the number of bits of objects such as keys and seeds.

Common Consequences

Access ControlOther
Bypass Protection MechanismOther

An attacker could guess the random numbers generated and could gain unauthorized access to a system if the random numbers are used for authentication and authorization.

Detection Methods

Automated Static Analysis

Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)

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