CWE-572: Call to Thread run() instead of start()
Official CWE-572 CWE context with Glexia analysis, remediation guidance, related CVEs, and ATT&CK context.
Glexia's Take
CWE-572: Call to Thread run() instead of start()
Call to Thread run() instead of start() represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Other: Quality Degradation,Varies by Context
Developer Pattern
CWE-572 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.
Confidence
high confidence from CWE-572, 4.20.
Official CWE Definition
CWE-572: Call to Thread run() instead of start()
The product calls a thread's run() method instead of calling start(), which causes the code to run in the thread of the caller instead of the callee.
In most cases a direct call to a Thread object's run() method is a bug. The programmer intended to begin a new thread of control, but accidentally called run() instead of start(), so the run() method will execute in the caller's thread of control.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- The following excerpt from a Java program mistakenly calls run() instead of start().
Remediation
- Implementation: Use the start() method instead of the run() method.
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.