CWE-395: Use of NullPointerException Catch to Detect NULL… | Glexia
CWE-395 (Use of NullPointerException Catch to Detect NULL Pointer Dereference) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related CVEs…
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis
CWE-395: Use of NullPointerException Catch to Detect NULL Pointer Dereference
Use of NullPointerException Catch to Detect NULL Pointer Dereference represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Availability: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)
Developer Pattern
CWE-395 is the kind of defect developers can usually prevent with explicit validation, safer framework defaults, and tests that exercise hostile input or unsafe state transitions.
Automation confidence
high confidence from CWE-395, 4.20.
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Official CWE Definition
CWE-395: Use of NullPointerException Catch to Detect NULL Pointer Dereference
Catching NullPointerException should not be used as an alternative to programmatic checks to prevent dereferencing a null pointer.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- The following code mistakenly catches a NullPointerException.
Remediation
- Architecture and Design,Implementation: Do not extensively rely on catching exceptions (especially for validating user input) to handle errors. Handling exceptions can decrease the performance of an application.
Detection
- Automated Static Analysis - Binary or Bytecode:
- Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation:
- Manual Static Analysis - Source Code:
- Automated Static Analysis - Source Code:
- Architecture or Design Review:
Mappings
Related CVEs, CWEs, and ATT&CK context
Related CWEs
ATT&CK Relevance
ATT&CK relevance is shown only when reviewed or responsibly inferred.