What is CWE-835?
CWE-835 is Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop'). The flaw arises when the product contains an iteration or loop with an exit condition that cannot be reached, i.e., an infinite loop.
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CWE-835: Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')
OWASP Top 10 Rank-
Related CVES (365 days)-
AbstractionBase
Likelihood of exploit-
No data
No vulnerability data for CWE-835
No data
No vulnerability data in CISA KEV for CWE-835
The product contains an iteration or loop with an exit condition that cannot be reached, i.e., an infinite loop.
Characteristics
Modes of introduction
- Implementation
Common consequences
| Impact | Scope | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory), DoS: Amplification | Availability | An infinite loop will cause unexpected consumption of resources, such as CPU cycles or memory. The software's operation may slow down, or cause a long time to respond. |
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.
- CVE-2025-32399-Chain: library for implementing Profinet devices does not check an input for a loop condition (CWE-606), allowing an infinite loop (CWE-835) via a crafted RPC packet
- CVE-2022-22224-Chain: an operating system does not properly process malformed Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Type/Length/Value Identifiers (TLV) (CWE-703), which can cause the process to enter an infinite loop (CWE-835)
- CVE-2022-25304-A Python machine communication platform did not account for receiving a malformed packet with a null size, causing the receiving function to never update the message buffer and be caught in an infinite loop.
- CVE-2011-1027-Chain: off-by-one error (CWE-193) leads to infinite loop (CWE-835) using invalid hex-encoded characters.
- CVE-2011-1142-Chain: self-referential values in recursive definitions lead to infinite loop.
- CVE-2011-1002-NULL UDP packet is never cleared from a queue, leading to infinite loop.
- CVE-2006-6499-Chain: web browser crashes due to infinite loop - "bad looping logic [that relies on] floating point math [CWE-1339] to exit the loop [CWE-835]"
- CVE-2010-4476-Floating point conversion routine cycles back and forth between two different values.
- CVE-2010-4645-Floating point conversion routine cycles back and forth between two different values.
- CVE-2010-2534-Chain: improperly clearing a pointer in a linked list leads to infinite loop.
- CVE-2013-1591-Chain: an integer overflow (CWE-190) in the image size calculation causes an infinite loop (CWE-835) which sequentially allocates buffers without limits (CWE-1325) until the stack is full.
- CVE-2008-3688-Chain: A denial of service may be caused by an uninitialized variable (CWE-457) allowing an infinite loop (CWE-835) resulting from a connection to an unresponsive server.
Sources (2)
Supporting documents
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