CAPEC Definitions / CAPEC-26
CAPEC-26: Leveraging Race Conditions
The adversary targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently, and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The adversary can leverage a race condition by running the race, modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance, a race condition can occur while accessing a file: the adversary can trick the system by replacing the original file with their version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
Extended Description
No Extended Description.
Mitigations
Use safe libraries to access resources such as files.
Be aware that improper use of access function calls such as chown(), tempfile(), chmod(), etc. can cause a race condition.
Use synchronization to control the flow of execution.
Use static analysis tools to find race conditions.
Pay attention to concurrency problems related to the access of resources.
Relationships with other CAPECs
No related CAPECs found.
Prerequisites
A resource is accessed/modified concurrently by multiple processes such that a race condition exists.
The adversary has the ability to modify the resource.
Related Weaknesses
CWE-368: Context Switching Race Condition
CWE-363: Race Condition Enabling Link Following
CWE-366: Race Condition within a Thread
CWE-370: Missing Check for Certificate Revocation after Initial Check
CWE-362: Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')
CWE-662: Improper Synchronization
CWE-689: Permission Race Condition During Resource Copy
CWE-667: Improper Locking
CWE-665: Improper Initialization
CWE-1223: Race Condition for Write-Once Attributes
CWE-1254: Incorrect Comparison Logic Granularity
CWE-1298: Hardware Logic Contains Race Conditions
