CWEweakness
CWE-580 clone() Method Without super.clone()
- Abstraction
- Variant
- Structure
- Simple
- Status
- Draft
- Languages
- Java
- CWE version
- 5.0
Description
The product contains a clone() method that does not call super.clone() to obtain the new object.
Common consequences
• Integrity, Other: Unexpected State, Quality Degradation — If a class does not follow this convention, a subclass's clone() method will return an object of the wrong type.
Potential mitigations
• [Implementation] All implementations of clone() should obtain the new object by calling super.clone().
• [Implementation] In some cases, you can eliminate the clone method altogether and use copy constructors.
Detection methods
• 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.)