The product properly checks for the existence of a lock, but the lock can be externally controlled or influenced by an actor that is outside of the intended sphere of control.

This prevents the product from acting on associated resources or performing other behaviors that are controlled by the presence of the lock. Relevant locks might include an exclusive lock or mutex, or modifying a shared resource that is treated as a lock. If the lock can be held for an indefinite period of time, then the denial of service could be permanent.

Modes Of Introduction

Architecture and Design
Implementation

Applicable Platforms

Language

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined)

Common Consequences

Observed Examples

Potential Mitigations

Phases : Architecture and Design // Implementation
Use any access control that is offered by the functionality that is offering the lock.
Phases : Architecture and Design // Implementation
Use unpredictable names or identifiers for the locks. This might not always be possible or feasible.
Phases : Architecture and Design
Consider modifying your code to use non-blocking synchronization methods.

Detection Methods

White Box

Automated code analysis techniques might not be able to reliably detect this weakness, since the application's behavior and general security model dictate which resource locks are critical. Interpretation of the weakness might require knowledge of the environment, e.g. if the existence of a file is used as a lock, but the file is created in a world-writable directory.

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

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.

Related Attack Patterns

Notes

This overlaps Insufficient Resource Pool when the "pool" is of size 1. It can also be resultant from race conditions, although the timing window could be quite large in some cases.

Submission

Modifications