Official definition

The product does not check or incorrectly checks the revocation status of a certificate, which may cause it to use a certificate that has been compromised.

An improper check for certificate revocation is a far more serious flaw than related certificate failures. This is because the use of any revoked certificate is almost certainly malicious. The most common reason for certificate revocation is compromise of the system in question, with the result that no legitimate servers will be using a revoked certificate, unless they are sorely out of sync.

Characteristics

Modes of introduction

Implementation: When the product uses certificate pinning, the developer might not properly validate all relevant components of the certificate before pinning the certificate. This can make it difficult or expensive to test after the pinning is complete.
Implementation: REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

Common consequences

Impact	Scope	Explanation
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity	Access Control	Trust may be assigned to an entity who is not who it claims to be.
Other	Integrity, Other	Data from an untrusted (and possibly malicious) source may be integrated.
Read Application Data	Confidentiality	Data may be disclosed to an entity impersonating a trusted entity, resulting in information disclosure.

Risk mitigations

Architecture and DesignEnsure that certificates are checked for revoked status.
ImplementationIf certificate pinning is being used, ensure that all relevant properties of the certificate are fully validated before the certificate is pinned, including the revoked status.

Detection methods

Method	Approach	Effectiveness
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.)	High

Representative vulnerabilities

Below are representative vulnerabilities related to this CWE, prioritized by severity.

Sources (2)

MITRE CWE

CWE Terms of Use

Supporting documents

The CLASP Application Security Process

CWE-299: Improper Check for Certificate Revocation

What is CWE-299?

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Vulnerabilities mapped to CWE-299

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Official definition

Characteristics

Modes of introduction

Common consequences

Risk mitigations

Detection methods

Representative vulnerabilities

Supporting documents

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