CWE - CWE-254: CWE CATEGORY: 7PK - Security Features (4.19.1)
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  • CWE CATEGORY: 7PK - Security Features

    Category ID: 254
    Vulnerability Mapping: PROHIBITED This CWE ID must not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
    + Summary
    Software security is not security software. Here we're concerned with topics like authentication, access control, confidentiality, cryptography, and privilege management.
    + 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). 700 Seven Pernicious Kingdoms
    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. 256 Plaintext Storage of a Password
    HasMember VariantVariant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 258 Empty Password in Configuration File
    HasMember VariantVariant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 259 Use of Hard-coded 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. 260 Password in Configuration File
    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. 261 Weak Encoding for 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. 272 Least Privilege Violation
    HasMember PillarPillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things. 284 Improper Access Control
    HasMember ClassClass - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 285 Improper Authorization
    HasMember ClassClass - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 330 Use of Insufficiently Random Values
    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. 359 Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor
    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. 798 Use of Hard-coded Credentials
    + 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:

    Consider mapping to weaknesses that are members of this Category.
    + References
    [REF-6] Katrina Tsipenyuk, Brian Chess and Gary McGraw. "Seven Pernicious Kingdoms: A Taxonomy of Software Security Errors". NIST Workshop on Software Security Assurance Tools Techniques and Metrics. NIST. 2005-11-07. <https://samate.nist.gov/SSATTM_Content/papers/Seven%20Pernicious%20Kingdoms%20-%20Taxonomy%20of%20Sw%20Security%20Errors%20-%20Tsipenyuk%20-%20Chess%20-%20McGraw.pdf>.
    + Content History
    + Submissions
    Submission Date Submitter Organization
    2006-07-19
    (CWE Draft 3, 2006-07-19)
    7 Pernicious Kingdoms
    + Modifications
    Modification Date Modifier Organization
    2008-09-08 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
    2009-07-27 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2010-02-16 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2015-12-07 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2017-01-19 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2017-11-08 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Name, Relationships
    2019-06-20 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2020-02-24 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated References, Relationships
    2023-06-29 CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Mapping_Notes
    + Previous Entry Names
    Change Date Previous Entry Name
    2017-11-08 Security Features
    Page Last Updated: January 21, 2026