Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key
The use of a hard-coded cryptographic key significantly increases the possibility that encrypted data may be recovered.
Demonstrations
The following examples help to illustrate the nature of this weakness and describe methods or techniques which can be used to mitigate the risk.
Note that the examples here are by no means exhaustive and any given weakness may have many subtle varieties, each of which may require different detection methods or runtime controls.
Example One
The following code examples attempt to verify a password using a hard-coded cryptographic key.
int VerifyAdmin(char *password) {
if (strcmp(password,"68af404b513073584c4b6f22b6c63e6b")) {
printf("Incorrect Password!\n");
return(0);
}
printf("Entering Diagnostic Mode...\n");
return(1);
}public boolean VerifyAdmin(String password) {
if (password.equals("68af404b513073584c4b6f22b6c63e6b")) {
System.out.println("Entering Diagnostic Mode...");
return true;
}
System.out.println("Incorrect Password!");
return false;int VerifyAdmin(String password) {
if (password.Equals("68af404b513073584c4b6f22b6c63e6b")) {
Console.WriteLine("Entering Diagnostic Mode...");
return(1);
}
Console.WriteLine("Incorrect Password!");
return(0);
}The cryptographic key is within a hard-coded string value that is compared to the password. It is likely that an attacker will be able to read the key and compromise the system.
See Also
Weaknesses in this category are related to the A02 category "Cryptographic Failures" in the OWASP Top Ten 2021.
Weaknesses in this category are related to the design and architecture of data confidentiality in a system. Frequently these deal with the use of encryption libraries....
This category identifies Software Fault Patterns (SFPs) within the Hardcoded Sensitive Data cluster (SFP33).
This view (slice) covers all the elements in CWE.
This view (slice) lists weaknesses that can be introduced during design.
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