Though a brand new methodology shook up the rankings of this 12 months’s most harmful software program bugs, the basic persistent threats nonetheless proved to be the largest danger to organizations, reinforcing the necessity for continued deal with — and funding in — safe code.
The annual Widespread Weak point Enumeration (CWE) listing is compiled by MITRE and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Company (CISA). This 12 months, for the primary time, their components included each severity and frequency of the failings.
“Weaknesses that have been not often found won’t obtain a excessive frequency rating, whatever the typical consequence related to any exploitation,” the listing’s methodology web page defined. “Weaknesses which might be each frequent and brought on vital hurt will obtain the best scores.”
The 12 months’s prime weaknesses, based on the 2024 CWE listing, was cross-site scripting (second final 12 months), adopted by out-of-bounds write (2023’s winner), SQL injection (additionally third final 12 months), cross-site request forgery (CSRF) (ninth in 2023), and path traversal (eighth final 12 months).
“Whereas we see a little bit of motion in rankings all through the listing for positive, we additionally proceed to see the presence of the ‘traditional suspects’ (e.g., CWE-79, CWE-89, CWE-125),” says Alec Summers, the mission chief for the CVE Program at MITRE and one of many listing’s authors. “It’s an ongoing concern that these and different cussed weaknesses stay excessive on the High 25 constantly.”
The one actual curveball on this 12 months’s rankings, he factors out, was CRSF rising from the ninth spot final 12 months to fourth in 2024. “This may replicate a larger emphasis on CSRF by vulnerability researchers or perhaps there are enhancements in CSRF detection, or perhaps extra adversaries are specializing in this type of situation. We are able to’t be utterly positive why it jumped the best way it did,” Summers says.
Because the software program growth life cycle (SDLC) and software program provide chain develop into extra labyrinthine yearly, and on a regular basis software program flaws proceed to proliferate, it is more and more necessary for organizations get a deal with on their techniques earlier than on a regular basis weaknesses develop into one thing extra sinister, he recommends.
“Wanting on the High 25, organizations are strongly inspired to assessment and leverage the listing as a guiding useful resource for shaping their software program safety methods,” Summers says. “By prioritizing them in each growth and procurement processes, organizations can extra proactively deal with danger.”
Shoring Up the Software program Provide Chain Begins at Dwelling
These efforts likewise ought to prolong throughout the software program supple chain, Summers provides.
“It is changing into an increasing number of necessary for organizations to undertake and demand their suppliers undertake root trigger mapping CVE with CWE,” he urges. “This encourages a precious suggestions loop into a corporation’s SDLC and structure design planning, which along with growing product safety can even get monetary savings: The extra weaknesses prevented in your product growth, the much less vulnerabilities to handle after deployment.”
Along with incorporating a brand new methodology for figuring out which software program flaws posed essentially the most danger, 2024 was the primary 12 months the total neighborhood of CVE Numbering Authorities (CNAs) contributed to the CWE Program’s effort. In complete 148 CNAs helped develop this 12 months’s listing, based on the CWE Undertaking. Presently there are 421 CNAs throughout 40 nations, based on CVE.org.