CWE-491: Public cloneable() Method Without Final ('Object… | Glexia
CWE-491 (Public cloneable() Method Without Final ('Object Hijack')) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related CVEs and MITRE…
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis
CWE-491: Public cloneable() Method Without Final ('Object Hijack')
Public cloneable() Method Without Final ('Object Hijack') represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Integrity,Other: Unexpected State,Varies by Context
Developer Pattern
CWE-491 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-491, 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-491: Public cloneable() Method Without Final ('Object Hijack')
A class has a cloneable() method that is not declared final, which allows an object to be created without calling the constructor. This can cause the object to be in an unexpected state.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- In this example, a public class "BankAccount" implements the cloneable() method which declares "Object clone(string accountnumber)":
- In the example below, a clone() method is defined without being declared final.
Remediation
- Implementation: Make the cloneable() method final.
Detection
- 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.)
Mappings
Related CVEs, CWEs, and ATT&CK context
Related CWEs
ATT&CK Relevance
ATT&CK relevance is shown only when reviewed or responsibly inferred.