CWE - CWE-840: CWE CATEGORY: Business Logic Errors (4.16)
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ID

CWE CATEGORY: Business Logic Errors

Category ID: 840
Vulnerability Mapping: PROHIBITED This CWE ID must not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
+ Summary
Weaknesses in this category identify some of the underlying problems that commonly allow attackers to manipulate the business logic of an application. Errors in business logic can be devastating to an entire application. They can be difficult to find automatically, since they typically involve legitimate use of the application's functionality. However, many business logic errors can exhibit patterns that are similar to well-understood implementation and design weaknesses.
+ Membership
Nature Type ID Name
MemberOf ViewView - a subset of CWE entries that provides a way of examining CWE content. The two main view structures are Slices (flat lists) and Graphs (containing relationships between entries). 699 Software Development
MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1348 OWASP Top Ten 2021 Category A04:2021 - Insecure Design
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 283 Unverified Ownership
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 639 Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 640 Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 708 Incorrect Ownership Assignment
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 826 Premature Release of Resource During Expected Lifetime
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 837 Improper Enforcement of a Single, Unique Action
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 841 Improper Enforcement of Behavioral Workflow
+ Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage: PROHIBITED

(this CWE ID must not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)

Reason: Category

Rationale:

This entry is a Category. Using categories for mapping has been discouraged since 2019. Categories are informal organizational groupings of weaknesses that can help CWE users with data aggregation, navigation, and browsing. However, they are not weaknesses in themselves.

Comments:

See member weaknesses of this category.
+ Notes

Terminology

The "Business Logic" term is generally used to describe issues that require domain-specific knowledge or "business rules" to determine if they are weaknesses or vulnerabilities, instead of legitimate behavior. Such issues might not be easily detectable via automatic code analysis, because the associated operations do not produce clear errors or undefined behavior at the code level. However, many such "business logic" issues can be understood as instances of other weaknesses such as input validation, access control, numeric computation, order of operations, etc.

Research Gap

The classification of business logic flaws has been under-studied, although exploitation of business flaws frequently happens in real-world systems, and many applied vulnerability researchers investigate them. The greatest focus is in web applications. There is debate within the community about whether these problems represent particularly new concepts, or if they are variations of well-known principles.

Many business logic flaws appear to be oriented toward business processes, application flows, and sequences of behaviors, which are not as well-represented in CWE as weaknesses related to input validation, memory management, etc.

+ References
[REF-795] Jeremiah Grossman. "Business Logic Flaws and Yahoo Games". 2006-12-08. <https://blog.jeremiahgrossman.com/2006/12/business-logic-flaws.html>. URL validated: 2023-04-07.
[REF-796] Jeremiah Grossman. "Seven Business Logic Flaws That Put Your Website At Risk". 2007-10. <https://docplayer.net/10021793-Seven-business-logic-flaws-that-put-your-website-at-risk.html>. URL validated: 2023-04-07.
[REF-797] WhiteHat Security. "Business Logic Flaws". <https://web.archive.org/web/20080720171327/http://www.whitehatsec.com/home/solutions/BL_auction.html>. URL validated: 2023-04-07.
[REF-798] WASC. "Abuse of Functionality". <http://projects.webappsec.org/w/page/13246913/Abuse-of-Functionality>.
[REF-799] Rafal Los and Prajakta Jagdale. "Defying Logic: Theory, Design, and Implementation of Complex Systems for Testing Application Logic". 2011. <https://www.slideshare.net/RafalLos/defying-logic-business-logic-testing-with-automation>. URL validated: 2023-04-07.
[REF-667] Rafal Los. "Real-Life Example of a 'Business Logic Defect' (Screen Shots!)". 2011. <http://h30501.www3.hp.com/t5/Following-the-White-Rabbit-A/Real-Life-Example-of-a-Business-Logic-Defect-Screen-Shots/ba-p/22581>.
[REF-801] Viktoria Felmetsger, Ludovico Cavedon, Christopher Kruegel and Giovanni Vigna. "Toward Automated Detection of Logic Vulnerabilities in Web Applications". USENIX Security Symposium 2010. 2010-08. <https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec10/tech/full_papers/Felmetsger.pdf>. URL validated: 2023-04-07.
[REF-802] Faisal Nabi. "Designing a Framework Method for Secure Business Application Logic Integrity in e-Commerce Systems". pages 29 - 41. International Journal of Network Security, Vol.12, No.1. 2011. <http://ijns.femto.com.tw/contents/ijns-v12-n1/ijns-2011-v12-n1-p29-41.pdf>.
+ Content History
+ Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2011-03-24
(CWE 1.12, 2011-03-30)
CWE Content Team MITRE
+ Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2017-01-19 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2017-11-08 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Observed_Examples, References, Taxonomy_Mappings
2018-03-27 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2020-02-24 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2020-06-25 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References
2021-10-28 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2022-10-13 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Terminology_Notes
2023-04-27 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes, References, Relationships
2023-06-29 CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
Page Last Updated: November 19, 2024