Cyber Resilience

CWE · MITRE source

CWE-1286Improper Validation of Syntactic Correctness of Input

Abstraction: Base · CVEs in our corpus: 91

The product receives input that is expected to be well-formed - i.e., to comply with a certain syntax - but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input complies with the syntax.

Often, complex inputs are expected to follow a particular syntax, which is either assumed by the input itself, or declared within metadata such as headers. The syntax could be for data exchange formats, markup languages, or even programming languages. When untrusted input is not properly validated for the expected syntax, attackers could cause parsing failures, trigger unexpected errors, or expose latent vulnerabilities that might not be directly exploitable if the input had conformed to the syntax.

Last updated: 21 August 2026 20:21 UTC

Cumulative inbound coverage

How completely the frameworks we cross-walk collectively cover this — the verdict is the strongest single mapping (overlapping partials are not summed); breadth shows the corroboration behind it.

Collective: partial · 2 mapping(s) from 1 framework(s): CAPEC 2 (partial)

See the full cumulative-coverage rollup →

Control responseHuman-reviewed

Answering this weakness across the control lifecycle, from our framework cross-walks.

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53 / CSF Protect)
  • PR.PS-06
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
Detect
Catch it (CSF Detect / Respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.1.1
  • V1.4.2
  • V2.1.1
  • V2.2.2

NIST 800-53 r5 controls that address this weakness (0)AI-assisted

Control Title Family Why it addresses this CWE
No NIST controls proposed yet.

Top CVEs of this weakness type, ranked by Risk Priority

CVE Risk CVSS EPSS Published
CVE-2024-7954 9.99.80.90052024-08-23
CVE-2021-28812 6.98.80.01552021-06-03
CVE-2021-31988 6.78.80.00952021-10-05
CVE-2024-51982 6.77.50.08242025-06-25
CVE-2024-51983 6.77.50.09052025-06-25
CVE-2025-13878 6.77.50.08362026-01-21
CVE-2025-41719 6.68.80.00512025-10-22
CVE-2026-25513 6.68.80.00472026-02-04
CVE-2026-50131 6.58.60.00352026-06-10
CVE-2022-1941 6.17.50.01212022-09-22
CVE-2022-22192 6.07.50.00742022-10-18
CVE-2024-3384 6.07.50.00892024-04-10
CVE-2025-22868 6.07.50.00842025-02-26
CVE-2026-21527 6.06.50.07682026-02-10
CVE-2026-25679 6.07.50.00732026-03-06
CVE-2026-42579 6.07.50.01012026-05-13
CVE-2026-7307 6.07.50.00742026-05-19
CVE-2021-31987 5.97.50.00892021-10-05
CVE-2023-28985 5.97.50.00632023-07-14
CVE-2023-32649 5.97.50.00532023-09-19
CVE-2024-21595 5.97.50.00542024-01-12
CVE-2024-21616 5.97.50.00532024-01-12
CVE-2024-0218 5.97.50.00552024-04-10
CVE-2024-21598 5.97.50.00572024-04-12
CVE-2024-39542 5.97.50.00472024-07-11