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⇱ CWE - CWE-392: Missing Report of Error Condition (4.20)

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Home > CWE List > CWE-392: Missing Report of Error Condition (4.20)  
CWE Glossary Definition
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CWE-392: Missing Report of Error Condition

Weakness ID: 392
Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
Abstraction: 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.
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Description
The product encounters an error but does not provide a status code or return value to indicate that an error has occurred.
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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

Varies by Context; Unexpected State

Scope: Integrity, Other
Errors that are not properly reported could place the system in an unexpected state that could lead to unintended behaviors.
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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 👁 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. 		684 Incorrect Provision of Specified Functionality
ChildOf 👁 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. 		755 Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions
PeerOf 👁 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. 		1429 Missing Security-Relevant Feedback for Unexecuted Operations in Hardware Interface
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Relevant to the view "Software Development" (View-699)
Nature Type ID Name
MemberOf 👁 Category
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 		389 Error Conditions, Return Values, Status Codes
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Relevant to the view "Architectural Concepts" (View-1008)
Nature Type ID Name
MemberOf 👁 Category
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 		1012 Cross Cutting
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Relevant to the view "CISQ Quality Measures (2020)" (View-1305)
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. 		703 Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions
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Relevant to the view "CISQ Data Protection Measures" (View-1340)
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. 		703 Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions
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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;
}


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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
Web-based product can throw an exception during authentication but does not report the failure in the HTTP status code, allowing authentication bypass.
Chain: JavaScript-based cryptocurrency library can fall back to the insecure Math.random() function instead of reporting a failure (CWE-392), thus reducing the entropy (CWE-332) and leading to generation of non-unique cryptographic keys for Bitcoin wallets (CWE-1391)
Function returns "OK" even if another function returns a different status code than expected, leading to accepting an invalid PIN number.
Error checking routine in PKCS#11 library returns "OK" status even when invalid signature is detected, allowing spoofed messages.
Kernel function truncates long pathnames without generating an error, leading to operation on wrong directory.
Function returns non-error value when a particular erroneous condition is encountered, leading to resultant NULL dereference.
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Weakness Ordinalities
Ordinality Description
Primary
(where the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
Resultant
(where the weakness is typically related to the presence of some 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.		 855 The CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java (2011) Chapter 12 - Thread Pools (TPS)
MemberOf 👁 View
View - a subset of CWE entries that provides a way of examining CWE content. The two main view structures are Slices (flat lists) and Graphs (containing relationships between entries).		 884 CWE Cross-section
MemberOf 👁 Category
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.		 961 SFP Secondary Cluster: Incorrect Exception Behavior
MemberOf 👁 Category
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.		 1145 SEI CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java - Guidelines 11. Thread Pools (TPS)
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
(this CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)
Reason Acceptable-Use

Rationale

This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.

Comments

Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.
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Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy Name Node ID Fit Mapped Node Name
PLOVER Missing Error Status Code
The CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java (2011) TPS03-J Ensure that tasks executing in a thread pool do not fail silently
Software Fault Patterns SFP6 Incorrect Exception Behavior
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References
[REF-1374] Unciphered. "Randstorm: You Can't Patch a House of Cards". 2023-11-14.
<https://www.unciphered.com/disclosure-of-vulnerable-bitcoin-wallet-library-2/>. (URL validated: 2025-07-29)
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Content History
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Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2006-07-19
(CWE Draft 3, 2006-07-19) 		PLOVER
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Modifications
Modification Date Modifier Organization
2026-04-30
(CWE 4.20, 2026-04-30) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Observed_Examples
2025-09-09
(CWE 4.18, 2025-09-09) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated References
2025-04-03
(CWE 4.17, 2025-04-03) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2024-02-29
(CWE 4.14, 2024-02-29) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Observed_Examples, References
2023-10-26
(CWE 4.13, 2023-10-26) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Demonstrative_Examples
2023-06-29
(CWE 4.12, 2023-06-29) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Mapping_Notes, Relationships
2023-04-27
(CWE 4.11, 2023-04-27) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships, Time_of_Introduction
2023-01-31
(CWE 4.10, 2023-01-31) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description
2020-12-10
(CWE 4.3, 2020-12-10) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2020-08-20
(CWE 4.2, 2020-08-20) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2019-01-03
(CWE 3.2, 2019-01-03) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2017-11-08
(CWE 3.0, 2017-11-08) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Applicable_Platforms, Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships
2014-07-30
(CWE 2.8, 2014-07-31) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2012-05-11
(CWE 2.2, 2012-05-15) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Common_Consequences, 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, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2010-12-13
(CWE 1.11, 2010-12-13) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Description, Name
2009-10-29
(CWE 1.6, 2009-10-29) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Other_Notes, Weakness_Ordinalities
2009-03-10
(CWE 1.3, 2009-03-10) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships
2008-09-08
(CWE 1.0, 2008-09-09) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
updated Relationships, Other_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008-07-01
(CWE 1.0, 2008-09-09) 		Sean Eidemiller Cigital
added/updated demonstrative examples
2008-07-01
(CWE 1.0, 2008-09-09) 		Eric Dalci Cigital
updated Time_of_Introduction
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Previous Entry Names
Change Date Previous Entry Name
2010-12-13 Failure to Report Error in Status Code
2008-04-11 Missing Error Status Code
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Page Last Updated: April 30, 2026

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