CWE-583: finalize() Method Declared Public | Glexia
CWE-583 (finalize() Method Declared Public) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related CVEs and MITRE ATT&CK context.
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis
CWE-583: finalize() Method Declared Public
finalize() Method Declared Public represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability: Alter Execution Logic,Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands,Modify Application Data
Developer Pattern
CWE-583 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-583, 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-583: finalize() Method Declared Public
The product violates secure coding principles for mobile code by declaring a finalize() method public.
A product should never call finalize explicitly, except to call super.finalize() inside an implementation of finalize(). In mobile code situations, the otherwise error prone practice of manual garbage collection can become a security threat if an attacker can maliciously invoke a finalize() method because it is declared with public access.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- The following Java Applet code mistakenly declares a public finalize() method. Mobile code, in this case a Java Applet, is code that is transmitted across a network and executed on a remote machine. Because mobile code developers have little if any control of the environment in which their code will execute, special security concerns become relevant. One of the biggest environmental threats results from the risk that the mobile code will run side-by-side with other, potentially malicious, mobile code. Because all of the popular web browsers execute code from multiple sources together in the same JVM, many of the security guidelines for mobile code are focused on preventing manipulation of your objects' state and behavior by adversaries who have access to the same virtual machine where your product is running.
Remediation
- Implementation: If you are using finalize() as it was designed, there is no reason to declare finalize() with anything other than protected access.
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.