CWE-208 — Observable Timing Discrepancy
CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy
MITRE CWE weakness
| Kind | Weakness |
| Abstraction | Base |
| Status | Incomplete |
| Likelihood of exploit | — |
Description
Two separate operations in a product require different amounts of time to complete, in a way that is observable to an actor and reveals security-relevant information about the state of the product, such as whether a particular operation was successful or not.
In security-relevant contexts, even small variations in timing can be exploited by attackers to indirectly infer certain details about the product's internal operations. For example, in some cryptographic algorithms, attackers can use timing differences to infer certain properties about a private key, making the key easier to guess. Timing discrepancies effectively form a timing side channel.
Common consequences
- Confidentiality, Access Control: Read Application Data, Bypass Protection Mechanism
Mitigations
(none listed)
References
- CWE page: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/208.html
- CWE list: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/index.html