CWE-170Improper Null Termination

Abstraction: Base · CVEs in our corpus: 53

The product does not terminate or incorrectly terminates a string or array with a null character or equivalent terminator.

Null termination errors frequently occur in two different ways. An off-by-one error could cause a null to be written out of bounds, leading to an overflow. Or, a program could use a strncpy() function call incorrectly, which prevents a null terminator from being added at all. Other scenarios are possible.

Last updated: 20 August 2026 14:15 UTC

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
SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation
SA-15 Development Process, Standards, and Tools
SI-10 Information Input Validation

Detect

Catch it (CSF Detect / Respond)

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Harden

Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

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Validate

Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

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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-2021-22931`	8.6	9.8	0.2195	2021-08-16
`CVE-2019-8275`	7.9	9.8	0.0397	2019-03-08
`CVE-2021-31886`	7.8	9.8	0.0303	2021-11-09
`CVE-2021-31884`	7.6	9.8	0.0145	2021-11-09
`CVE-2026-5067`	7.4	9.8	0.0064	2026-06-09
`CVE-2026-8721`	7.3	9.8	0.0045	2026-05-17
`CVE-2021-1471`	7.2	9.9	0.0132	2021-03-24
`CVE-2021-1411`	7.2	9.9	0.0138	2021-03-24
`CVE-2021-1469`	7.1	9.9	0.0103	2021-03-24
`CVE-2021-1417`	7.1	9.9	0.0096	2021-03-24
`CVE-2021-1418`	7.1	9.9	0.0094	2021-03-24
`CVE-2021-31887`	7.0	8.8	0.0237	2021-11-09
`CVE-2021-31888`	7.0	8.8	0.0237	2021-11-09
`CVE-2026-55738`	6.5	8.8	0.0040	2026-06-17
`CVE-2024-45288`	6.2	8.4	0.0030	2024-09-05
`CVE-2025-67733`	6.2	8.5	0.0059	2026-02-23
`CVE-2022-47515`	6.1	7.5	0.0115	2022-12-18
`CVE-2023-24021`	6.0	7.5	0.0091	2023-01-20
`CVE-2024-21442`	6.0	7.8	0.0083	2024-03-12
`CVE-2024-43474`	6.0	7.6	0.0126	2024-09-10
`CVE-2026-34464`	6.0	8.8	0.0017	2026-05-05
`CVE-2026-45798`	6.0	7.5	0.0089	2026-08-19
`CVE-2024-31484`	5.9	7.8	0.0047	2024-05-14
`CVE-2025-62792`	5.8	7.5	0.0036	2025-10-29
`CVE-2025-67790`	5.8	7.5	0.0032	2025-12-17