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⇱ CWE - CWE-684: Incorrect Provision of Specified Functionality (4.20)

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Home > CWE List > CWE-684: Incorrect Provision of Specified Functionality (4.20)  
CWE Glossary Definition
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CWE-684: Incorrect Provision of Specified Functionality

Weakness ID: 684
Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review (with careful review of mapping notes)
Abstraction: Class Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.
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Description
The code does not function according to its published specifications, potentially leading to incorrect usage.
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Extended Description
When providing functionality to an external party, it is important that the product behaves in accordance with the details specified. When requirements of nuances are not documented, the functionality may produce unintended behaviors for the caller, possibly leading to an exploitable state.
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Common Consequences
👁 Section Help
This table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.
Impact Details

Quality Degradation

Scope: Other
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Potential Mitigations
Phase(s) Mitigation

Implementation
Ensure that your code strictly conforms to specifications.
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 Relationships
👁 Section Help
This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.
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Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)
Nature Type ID Name
ChildOf 👁 Pillar
Pillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things. 		710 Improper Adherence to Coding Standards
ParentOf 👁 Base
Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 		392 Missing Report of Error Condition
ParentOf 👁 Base
Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 		393 Return of Wrong Status Code
ParentOf 👁 Base
Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 		440 Expected Behavior Violation
ParentOf 👁 Class
Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 		446 UI Discrepancy for Security Feature
ParentOf 👁 Class
Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 		451 User Interface (UI) Misrepresentation of Critical Information
ParentOf 👁 Class
Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 		912 Hidden Functionality
ParentOf 👁 Base
Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 		1245 Improper Finite State Machines (FSMs) in Hardware Logic
CanFollow 👁 Base
Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 		1434 Insecure Setting of Generative AI/ML Model Inference Parameters
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Modes Of Introduction
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The different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.
Phase Note
Implementation
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Applicable Platforms
👁 Section Help
This listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.
Languages

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

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Demonstrative Examples

Example 1


In the following snippet from a doPost() servlet method, the server returns "200 OK" (default) even if an error occurs.

(bad code)
Example Language: Java 
try {

// Something that may throw an exception.
...
} catch (Throwable t) {
logger.error("Caught: " + t.toString());
return;
}


Example 2


In the following example, an HTTP 404 status code is returned in the event of an IOException encountered in a Java servlet. A 404 code is typically meant to indicate a non-existent resource and would be somewhat misleading in this case.

(bad code)
Example Language: Java 
try {

// something that might throw IOException
...
} catch (IOException ioe) {
response.sendError(SC_NOT_FOUND);
}


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Selected Observed Examples

Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.

Reference Description
Error checking routine in PKCS#11 library returns "OK" status even when invalid signature is detected, allowing spoofed messages.
Chain: System call returns wrong value (CWE-393), leading to a resultant NULL dereference (CWE-476).
Program uses large timeouts on unconfirmed connections resulting from inconsistency in linked lists implementations.
UI inconsistency; visited URLs list not cleared when "Clear History" option is selected.
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Weakness Ordinalities
Ordinality Description
Indirect
(where the weakness is a quality issue that might indirectly make it easier to introduce security-relevant weaknesses or make them more difficult to detect)
Primary
(where the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
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Memberships
👁 Section Help
This MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.
Nature Type ID Name
MemberOf 👁 Category
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.		 735 CERT C Secure Coding Standard (2008) Chapter 2 - Preprocessor (PRE)
MemberOf 👁 Category
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.		 1001 SFP Secondary Cluster: Use of an Improper API
MemberOf 👁 Category
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.		 1412 Comprehensive Categorization: Poor Coding Practices
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Vulnerability Mapping Notes
Usage ALLOWED-WITH-REVIEW
(this CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review)
Reason Abstraction

Rationale

This CWE entry is a Class and might have Base-level children that would be more appropriate

Comments

Examine children of this entry to see if there is a better fit
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Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy Name Node ID Fit Mapped Node Name
CERT C Secure Coding PRE09-C Do not replace secure functions with less secure functions
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Content History
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Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2008-04-11
(CWE Draft 9, 2008-04-11) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
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Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2025-12-11
(CWE 4.19, 2025-12-11) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms
2025-09-09
(CWE 4.18, 2025-09-09) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2023-10-26
(CWE 4.13, 2023-10-26) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Demonstrative_Examples, Observed_Examples
2023-06-29
(CWE 4.12, 2023-06-29) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes
2023-04-27
(CWE 4.11, 2023-04-27) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2023-01-31
(CWE 4.10, 2023-01-31) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description
2022-04-28
(CWE 4.7, 2022-04-28) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2020-02-24
(CWE 4.0, 2020-02-24) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2019-01-03
(CWE 3.2, 2019-01-03) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Weakness_Ordinalities
2017-11-08
(CWE 3.0, 2017-11-08) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Type
2014-07-30
(CWE 2.8, 2014-07-31) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2014-02-18
(CWE 2.6, 2014-02-19) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2012-05-11
(CWE 2.2, 2012-05-15) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2011-06-27
(CWE 2.0, 2011-06-27) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2011-06-01
(CWE 1.13, 2011-06-01) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences
2011-03-29
(CWE 1.12, 2011-03-30) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Name
2010-12-13
(CWE 1.11, 2010-12-13) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Potential_Mitigations
2008-11-24
(CWE 1.1, 2008-11-25) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008-09-08
(CWE 1.0, 2008-09-09) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Relationships
2008-07-01
(CWE 1.0, 2008-09-09) 		Eric Dalci Cigital
updated Potential_Mitigations, Time_of_Introduction
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Previous Entry Names
Change Date Previous Entry Name
2011-03-29 Failure to Provide Specified Functionality
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Page Last Updated: April 30, 2026

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