Improper Handling of Inconsistent Structural Elements
This vulnerability occurs when a system fails to properly manage situations where related data structures or elements should match but are inconsistent.
This weakness stems from a lack of validation or reconciliation logic when processing interconnected data points. For example, an application might check a user's role in one part of a request but ignore a conflicting permission flag sent in another, or it might parse a file header but not verify that the declared data length matches the actual payload size. Without proper handling, these inconsistencies can be exploited to bypass security checks, corrupt data, or cause unexpected system behavior. To prevent this, developers should implement strict consistency checks wherever structural relationships exist. This includes validating that all linked elements (like headers and bodies, metadata and content, or multi-part transaction states) are synchronized and logically coherent before processing. Defensive coding practices, such as using immutable data structures after validation or adopting a single source of truth for critical attributes, can effectively eliminate the risks posed by inconsistent elements.
Impact: Varies by ContextUnexpected State
ID : DX-91
In the following C/C++ example the method processMessageFromSocket() will get a message from a socket, placed into a buffer, and will parse the contents of the buffer into a structure that contains the message length and the message body. A for loop is used to copy the message body into a local character string which will be passed to another method for processing.Code Example:
c// get message from socket and store into buffer*
cc// process message* success = processMessage(message);} return success;}
- PLOVER